AMERICAN    LITERATURE 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE 


BY 

EDWIN    PERCY    WHIPPLE 


WITH  INTRO D  UCTOR  Y  NO  TE 

BY 

JOHN    GREENLEAF    WHITTIER 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 


Copyright,  18$7, 

BY    TlCKNOR    AND    Co, 


All  rights  reserved. 


NOTE. 

THANKS  are  due  to  Messrs.  LITTLE,  BROWN,  &  Co. 
for  their  kind  permission  to  use  the  Essay  on  "Daniel 
Webster  as  a  Master  of  English  Style," —  originally 
prepared  as  an  introduction  to  their  collection  of 
Webster's  "  Great  Speeches  and  Orations," — and  to 
the  publishers  of  "Harper's  Monthly"  and  the  "North 
American  Review,"  for  the  articles  reprinted  from 
those  publications. 


M185399 


TO 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER, 


THE    LOYAL    FRIEND, 

WHOSE  INNER  LIGHT  HAS  BRIGHTENED  MANY  LIVES 

AND   WHOSE  FAITH  IN  THE  ETERNAL 

ASSURED    MANY    HEARTS 

OF  IMMORTALITY. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 
INTRODUCTION   .  .    xiii 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE 1 

DANIEL  WEBSTER  AS  A  MASTER  OP  ENGLISH  STYLE   .    .  139 

EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE   .    .    „ .    .  234 

EMERSON  AS  A  POET 259 

CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OP  THOMAS  STARR  KING  .  299 


INTRODUCTION. 


I  HAVE  been  pained  to  learn  of  the  decease  of  my 
friend  of  many  years,  EDWIN  P.  WHIFFLE.  Death, 
however  expected,  is  always  something  of  a  surprise, 
and  in  his  case  I  was  not  prepared  for  it  by  knowing 
of  any  serious  failure  of  his  health.  With  the  possible 
exception  of  Lowell  and  Matthew  Arnold,  he  was  the 
ablest  critical  essayist  of  his  time ;  and  the  place  he 
has  left  will  not  be  readily  filled. 

Scarcely  inferior  to  Macaulay  in  brilliance  of  diction 
and  graphic  portraiture,  he  was  freer  from  prejudice 
and  passion,  and  more  loyal  to  the  truth  of  fact  and 
history.  He  was  a  thoroughly  honest  man.  He  wrote 
with  conscience  always  at  his  elbow,  and  never  sacri- 
ficed his  real  convictions  for  the  sake  of  epigram  and 
antithesis.  He  instinctively  took  the  right  side  of  the 
questions  that  came  before  him  for  decision,  even  when 
by  so  doing  he  ranked  himself  with  the  unpopular 
minority.  He  had  the  manliest  hatred  of  hypocrisy 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

and  meanness ;  but  if  his  language  had  at  times  the 
severity  of  justice,  it  was  never  merciless.  He  "  set 
down  naught  in  malice." 

Never  blind  to  faults,  he  had  a  quick  and  sympa- 
thetic eye  for  any  real  excellence,  or  evidence  of 
reserved  strength  in  the  author  under  discussion.  He 
was  a  modest  man,  sinking  his  own  personality  out  of 
sight,  and  he  always  seemed  to  me  more  interested 
in  the  success  of  others  than  in  his  own.  Many  of 
his  literary  contemporaries  have  had  reason  to  thank 
him  not  only  for  his  cordial  recognition  and  gener- 
ous praise,  but  for  the  firm  and  yet  kindly  hand 
which  pointed  out  deficiencies  and  errors  of  taste 
and  judgment.  As  one  of  those  who  have  found 
pleasure  and  profit  in  his  writings  in  the  past,  I 
would  gratefully  commend  them  to  the  generation 
which  survives  him.  His  "  Literature  of  the  Age 
of  Elizabeth "  is  deservedly  popular,  but  there  are 
none  of  his  Essays  which  will  not  repay  a  careful 
study.  "What  works  of  Mr.  Baxter  shall  I  read?" 
asked  Boswell  of  Dr.  Johnson.  "  Read  any  of 
them,"  was  the  answer,  "for  they  are  all  good." 

He  will  have  an  honored  place  in  the  history  of 
American  literature.  But  I  cannot  now  dwell  upon  his 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

authorship  while  thinking  of  him  as  the  beloved  mem- 
ber of  a  literary  circle  now,  alas  !  sadly  broken.  I  re- 
call the  wise,  genial  companion  and  faithful  friend  of 
nearly  half  a  century,  the  memory  of  whose  words  and 
acts  of  kindness  moistens  my  eyes  as  I  write. 

It  is  the  inevitable  sorrow  of  age  that  one's  compan- 
ions must  drop  away  on  the  right  hand  and  the  left 
with  increasing  frequency,  until  we  are  compelled  to 
ask  with  Wordsworth,  — 

"Who  next  shall  fall  and  disappear  ?" 

But  in  the  case  of  him  who  has  just  passed  from  us, 
we  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  his  life-work 
has  been  well  and  faithfully  done,  and  that  he  leaves 
behind  him  only  friends. 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIEB. 
DANVERS,  6tk  Mo.  18,  1886. 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


AND 


OTHER    PAPERS. 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE. 

[1776-1876.] 
I. 

IN  a  retrospect  of  what  has  been  done  in  American 
literature  during  the  past  hundred  years,  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  to  draw  a  sharp  line  of  distinction 
between  the  mental  powers  displayed  in  literature 
and  those  which  have  been  exhibited  in  industrial 
creation,  in  statesmanship,  and  in  the  abstract  and 
applied  sciences.  The  literature  of  America  is  but  an 
insufficient  measure  of  the  realized  capacities  of  the 
American  mind.  When  Sir  William  Hamilton  de- 
clared that  Aristotle  had  an  imagination  as  great  as 
that  of  Homer,  he  struck  at  the  primary  fact  that  the 
creative  energies  of  the  human  mind  may  be  exercised 
in  widely  different  lines  of  direction.  Imagination  is, 
in  the  popular  mind,  obstinately  connected  with  poetry 
and  romance.  This  prejudice  is  further  deepened  by 
associating  imagination  with  amiable  emotions,  regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  two  of  the  greatest  characters 

1 


LITERATURE. 

created  by  the  human  imagination  are  two  of  the  vil- 
est types  of  intelligent  nature,  —  lago  and  Mephisto- 
pheles.  When  the  attempt  is  made  to  extend  the 
application  of  the  creative  energy  of  imagination  to 
business  and  politics,  the  sentimental  outcry  against 
such  a  profanation  of  the  term  becomes  almost  deaf- 
ening. Every  poetaster  is  willing  to  admit  that  New- 
ton is  one  of  the  few  grand  scientific  discoverers  that 
the  world  has  produced  ;  but  he  still  thinks  that,  in 
virtue  of  versifying  some  commonplaces  of  emotion 
and  thought,  he  is  himself  superior  to  Newton  in  im- 
agination. The  truth  is  that,  in  spite  of  Newton's 
incapacity  to  appreciate  works  of  literature  and  art, 
he  possessed  a  creative  imagination  of  the  first  class, 
—  an  imagination  which,  in  boundless  fertility,  is 
second  only  to  Shakspeare's.  In  fact,  it  is  the  direc- 
tion given  to  the  creative  faculty,  and  not  to  the 
materials  on  which  it  works,  that  discriminates  be- 
tween Fulton  and  Bryant,  Whitney  and  Longfellow, 
Bigelow  and  Whittier,  Goodyear  and  Lowell.  De- 
scending from  the  inventors,  it  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  in  the  conduct  of  the  every-day  transactions  of 
life,  more  quickness  of  imagination,  subtilty  and 
breadth  of  understanding,  and  energy  of  will  have 
been  displayed  by  our  men  of  business  than  by  our 
authors.  By  the  necessities  of  our  position,  the  ag- 
gregate mind  of  the  country  has  been  exercised  in 
creating  the  nation  as  we  now  find  it.  There  is,  in- 
deed, something  ludicrous,  to  a  large  observer  of  all 
the  phenomena  of  our  national  life,  in  confounding 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  3 

the  brain  and  heart  of  the  United  States  with  the 
manifestation  that  either  has  found  in  mere  literary 
expression.  The  nation  outvalues  all  its  authors, 
even  in  respect  to  those  powers  which  authors  are 

^**1 

supposed  specially  to  represent.  Nobody  can  write 
intelligently  of  the  progress  of  American  literature 
during  the  past  hundred  years  without  looking  at 
American  literature  as  generally  subsidiary  to  the 
grand  movement  of  the  American  mind. 

It  is  curious,  however,  that  the  only  apparent  con- 
tradiction to  this  general  principle  dates  from  the 
beginning  of  our  national  life.  At  the  time  the 
American  Revolution  broke  out,  the  two  men  who 
best  represented  the  double  aspect  of  the  thought  of 
the  colonies  were  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Benjamin 
Franklin.  Both  come  within  the  domain  of  the  his- 
torian of  literature,  for  both  were  great  forces  in  our 
literature,  whose  influence  is  yet  unspent.  Of  Jona- 
than Edwards,  the  greatest  of  American  theologians 
and  metaphysicians,  and  a  religious  genius  of  the  first 
order,  it  is  impossible  to  speak  without  respect,  and 
even  reverence.  No  theologian  born  in  our  country 
has  exercised  more  influence  on  minds  and  souls  kin- 
dred to  his  own.  Those  who  opposed  him  recognized 
his  pre-eminent  powers  of  intellect. .  Everybody  felt, 
in  assailing  such  a  consummate  reasoner,  the  restrain- 
ing modesty  which  a  master-spirit  always  evokes  in 
the  minds  of  his  adversaries.  His  treatise  on  the 
Will  has  been  generally  accepted  as  one  of  the  marvels 
of  intellectual  acuteness,  exercised  on  one  of  the  most 


4  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

difficult  problems  which  have  ever  tested  the  resources 
of  the  human  intellect.  There  have  heen  many  an- 
swers to  it,  but  no  answer  which  is  generally  consid- 
ered unanswerable.  Such  works,  indeed,  as  this  of 
Edwards  on  the  Will  are  not  so  much  answered  or 
refuted  as  gradually  outgrown.  But  the  treatise  has 
certainly  exercised  and  strengthened  all  the  minds 
that  have  resolutely  grappled  with  it,  and  has  aided 
the  development  of  the  logical  powers  of  American 
orthodox  divines  in  a  remarkable  degree.  Whether 
a  controversialist  agrees  with  its  author,  or  dissents 
from  him,  Edwards  always  quickens  the  mental  activ- 
ity of  everybody  who  strives  to  follow  the  course  of 
his  argumentation,  or  to  detect  the  lurking  fallacy 
which  is  supposed  to  be  discoverable  somewhere  in 
the  premises  or  processes  of  his  logic.  Perhaps  this 
fallacy  is  to  be  found  in  the  various  senses  in  which 
Edwards  uses  the  vital  word  "  determination."  To 
most  readers  who  believe  the  will  to  be  abstractly 
free,  but  that  the  actions  of  men  commonly  proceed 
from  the  characters  they  have  gradually  formed,  the 
most  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  mystery  is  that 
of  Jouffroy,  who  declares  that  "  Liberty  is  the  ideal 
of  the  Me."  Others  may  obtain  consolation  from  Gil- 
fillan's  somewhat  flippant  remark,  that  everything  a 
man  does  is  not  necessary  before  he  does  it,  but  is 
necessary  after  he  has  done  it.  Essentially  the  doc- 
trine of  Edwards  agrees  with  that  of  philosophical 
necessity,  and  with  that  so  vehemently  urged  by 
many  scientists,  that  the  actions  of  men  are  as  much 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  5 

controlled  by  law  as  the  movements  of  the  planets. 
The  great  difference  between  Edwards's  theory  and  the 
others  is,  that  he  connects  his  metaphysics  with  a 
theological  system,  and  his  treatise  remains  as  a  kind 
of  practical  argument  for  the  everlasting  damnation 
of  those  who  question  the  infallibility  of  its  logic. 

Edwards's  large  and  subtle  understanding  was  con- 
nected with  an  imagination  of  intense  realizing  power, 
and  both  were  based  on  a  soul  of  singular  purity,  open 
on  many  sides  to  communications  from  the  Divine 
Mind.  He  had  an  almost  preternatural  conception  of 
the  "  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin."  His  imagination 
was  filled  with  ghastly  images  of  the  retribution  which 
awaits  on  iniquity,  and  his  reasoned  sermons  on  eter- 
nal torments  were  but  the  outbreak  of  a  sensitive  feel- 
ing, a  holy  passion  for  goodness,  which  made  him 
intolerant  of  any  excellence  which  did  not  approach 
his  ideal  of  godliness.  But  then  his  spiritual  experi- 
ence, though  it  inflamed  one  side  of  his  imagination 
with  vivid  pictures  of  the  terrors  of  hell,  on  the  other 
side  gave  the  most  enrapturing  visions  of  the  spiritual 
joys  of  heaven.  It  is  unfortunate  for  his  fame  that 
his  hell  has  obtained  for  him  more  popular  recogni- 
tion than  his  heaven.  Like  other  poets,  such  as  Dante 
and  Milton,  his  pictures  of  the  torments  of  the  damned 
have  cast  into  the  shade  that  celestial  light  which 
shines  so  lovingly  over  his  pictures  of  the  bliss  of  the 
redeemed.  True  religion,  he  tells  us,  consists  in  a 
great  measure  in  holy  affections,  —  in  "  a  love  of  di- 
vine things  for  the  beauty  and  sweetness  of  their 


6  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

moral  excellency."  "  Sweetness  "  is  a  frequent  word 
all  through  Edwards's  works,  when  he  desires  to  con- 
vey his  perception  of  the  satisfactions  which  await  on 
piety  in  this  world,  and  the  ineffable  joy  of  the  expe- 
riences of  pious  souls  in  the  next ;  and  this  word  he 
thrills  with  a  transcendent  depth  of  suggestive  mean- 
ing which  it  bears  in  no  dictionary,  nor  in  the  vocabu- 
lary of  any  other  writer  of  the  English  language.  He 
was  certainly  one  of  the  holiest  souls  that  ever  ap- 
peared on  the  planet.  The  admiration  which  has 
been  generally  awarded  to  his  power  of  reasoning 
should  be  extended  to  his  power  of  affirming,  that  is, 
when  he  affirms  ideas  coming  from  those  moods  of 
blessedness  in  which  his  soul  seems  to  be  in  direct 
contact  with  divine  things,  and  vividly  beholds  what 
in  other  discourses  his  mind  reasons  up  to  or  about. 
To  reach  these  divine  heights,  however,  you  must, 
according  to  Edwards,  mount  the  stairs  of  dogma 
built  by  Augustine  and  Calvin. 

Jonathan  Edwards  may  be  characterized  as  a  man 
of  the  next  world.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  emphati- 
cally a  man  of  this  world.  Not  that  Franklin  lacked 
religion  and  homely  practical  piety,  but  he  had  none 
of  Edwards's  intense  depth  of  religious  experience. 
God  was  to  him  a  beneficent  being,  aiding  good  men 
in  their  hard  struggles  with  the  facts  of  life,  and  not 
pitiless  to  those  who  stumbled  in  the  path  of  duty, 
or  even  to  those  who  widely  diverged  from  it.  The 
heaven  of  Edwards  was  as  far  above  his  spiritual 
vision  as  the  hell  of  Edwards  was  below  his  soundings 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  7 

of  the  profundities  of  human  wickedness ;  but  there 
never  was  a  person  who  so  swiftly  distinguished  an 
honest  man  from  a  rogue,  or  who  was  more  quick  to 
see  that  the  rogue  was  at  war  with  the  spiritual  con- 
stitution of  things.  He  seems  to  have  learned  his 
morality  in  a  practical  way.  All  his  early  slips  from 
the  straight  line  of  duty  were  but  experiments,  from 
which  he  drew  lessons  in  moral  wisdom.  If  he  hap- 
pened occasionally  to  lapse  into  vice,  he  made  the 
experience  of  vice  a  new  fortress  to  defend  his  virtue  ; 
and  he  came  out  of  the  temptations  of  youth  and 
middle  age  with  a  character  generally  recognized  as 
one  of  singular  solidity,  serenity,  and  benignity.  His 
intellect,  in  the  beautiful  harmony  of  its  faculties,  his 
conscience,  in  the  instinctive  sureness  of  its  percep- 
tion of  the  relations  of  duties,  and  his  heart,  in  its 
subordination  of  malevolent  to  beneficent  emotions,  — 
all  showed  how  diligent  he  had  been  in  the  austere 
self-culture  which  eventually  raised  him  to  the  first 
rank  among  the  men  of  his  time.  Simplicity  was  the 
fine  result  of  the  complexities  which  entered  into  his 
mind  and  character.  He  was  a  man  who  never  used 
words  except  to  express  positive  thoughts  or  emotions, 
and  was  never  tempted  to  misuse  them  for  the  pur- 
poses of  declamation.  He  kept  his  style  always  on 
the  level  of  his  character.  In  announcing  his  scien- 
tific discoveries,  as  in  his  most  private  letters,  he  is 
ever  simple.  In  breadth  of  mind  he  is  probably  the 
most  eminent  man  that  our  country  has  produced ; 
for  while  he  was  the  greatest  diplomatist,  and  one  of 


8  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

the  greatest  statesmen  and  patriots  of  the  United 
States,  he  was  also  a  discoverer  in  science,  a  benig- 
nant philanthropist,  and  a  master  in  that  rare  art  of 
so  associating  words  with  things  that  they  appeared 
identical.  Edwards  represents,  humanly  speaking,  the 
somewhat  doleful  doctrine  that  the  best  thing  a  good 
man  can  do  is  to  get  out,  as  soon  as  he  decently  can, 
of  this  world  into  one  which  is  immeasurably  better, 
by  devoting  all  his  energies  to  the  salvation  of  his 
own  particular  soul.  Franklin,  on  the  contrary, 
seems  perfectly  content  with  this  world,  as  long  as 
he  thinks  he  can  better  it.  Edwards  would  doubtless 
have  considered  Franklin  a  child  of  wrath,  but  Francis 
Bacon  would  have  hailed  him  as  one  of  that  band  of 
explorers  who,  by  serving  Nature,  will  in  the  end 
master  her  mysteries,  and  use  their  knowledge  for 
the  service  of  man.  Indeed,  the  cheerful,  hopeful 
spirit  which  runs  through  Franklin's  writings,  even 
when  he  was  tried  by  obstacles  which  might  have 
tasked  the  proverbial  patience  of  Job,  is  not  one  of 
the  least  of  his  claims  upon  the  consideration  of  those 
who  rightfully  glory  in  having  such  a  genius  for  their 
countryman.  The  spirit  which  breathes  through 
Franklin's  life  and  works  is  that  which  has  in- 
spired every  pioneer  of  our  Western  wastes,  every 
poor  farmer  who  has  tried  to  make  both  ends  meet 
by  the  exercise  of  rigid  economy,  every  inventor  who 
has  attempted  to  serve  men  by  making  machines  do 
half  the  drudgery  of  their  work,  every  statesman  who 
has  striven  to  introduce  large  principles  into  our  some- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  ^ 

what  confused  and  contradictory  legislation,  every 
American  diplomatist  who  has  upheld  the  character 
of  his  country  abroad  by  sagacity  in  managing  men, 
as  well  as  by  integrity  in  the  main  purpose  of  his 
mission,  and  every  honest  man  who  has  desired  to 
diminish  the  evil  there  is  in  the  world,  and  to  increase 
every  possible  good  that  is  conformable  to  good  sense. 
Franklin  is  doubtless  our  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  but 
his  worldly  wisdom  ever  points  to  the  Christian's 
prayer  that  God's  will  shall  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is 
done  in  heaven. 

One  of  the  most  ludicrous  misinterpretations  of  this 
large,  bounteous,  and  benignant  intelligence  is  that 
which  confines  his  influence  to  the  little  corner  of  his 
mind  in  which  he  lodged  "  Poor  Richard."  It  is  com- 
mon even  now  to  hear  complaints  from  opulent  Eng- 
lish gentlemen  that  Franklin  has  done  much  to  make 
the  average  American  narrow  in  mind,  hard  of  heart, 
greedy  of  small  gains,  mean  in  little  economies.  This 
is  said  of  a  nation  the  poorer  portions  of  whose  popu- 
lation are  needlessly  wasteful,  and  whose  richer  por- 
tions astonish  Europe  annually  by  the  profusion  with 
which  they  scatter  dollars  to  the  right  and  the  left. 
The  maxims  of  poor  Richard  are  generally  good,  and 
the  more  they  are  circulated,  the  more  practical  good 
they  will  do  ;  for  our  countrymen  are  remarkable 
rather  for  violating  than  for  obeying  them.  In  all 
these  criticisms  on  Franklin,  however,  it  is  strange 
that  few  have  observed  what  a  delicious  specimen  of 
humorous  characterization  he  has  introduced  into  lit- 


10  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

erature  in  his  charming  delineation  of  Poor  Bichard. 
The  effect  is  heightened  by  the  groaning,  droning  way 
in  which  the  good  man  delivers  his  bits  of  wisdom,  as 
if  he  despairingly  felt  that  the  rustics  around  him 
would  disregard  his  advice  and  monitions,  and  pass 
through  the  usual  experiences  of  the  passions,  insen- 
sible to  the  gasping,  croaking  voice  which  warned 
them  in  advance. 

Franklin  is  probably  the  best  specimen  that  history 
affords  of  what  is  called  a  self-made  man.  He  cer- 
tainly "  never  worshipped  his  maker,"  according  to 
Mr.  Clapp's  stinging  epigram,  but  was  throughout  his 
life,  though  always  self-respectful,  never  self-conceited. 
Perhaps  the  most  notable  result  of  his  self-education 
was  the  ease  with  which  he  accosted  all  grades  and 
classes  of  men  on  a  level  of  equality.  The  printer's 
boy  became,  in  his  old  age,  one  of  the  most  popular 
men  in  the  French  court,  not  only  among  its  states- 
men, but  among  its  frivolous  nobles  and  their  wives. 
He  ever  estimated  men  at  their  true  worth  or  worth- 
lessness ;  but  as  a  diplomatist  he  was  a  marvel  of 
sagacity.  The  same  ease  of  manner  which  recom- 
mended him  to  a  Pennsylvania  farmer  was  preserved 
in  a  conference  with  a  statesman  or  a  king.  He  ever 
kept  his  end  in  view  in  all  his  complaisances,  and  that 
end  was  always  patriotic.  When  he  returned  to  his 
country  he  was  among  the  most  earnest  to  organize 
the  liberty  he  had  done  so  much  to  achieve ;  and  he 
also  showed  his  hostility  to  the  system  of  negro  slav- 
ery with  which  the  United  States  was  accursed.  At 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  11 

the  ripe  age  of  eighty-four  he  died,  leaving  behind 
him  a  record  of  extraordinary  faithfulness  in  the  per- 
formance of  all  the  duties  of  life.  His  sagacity,  when 
his  whole  career  is  surveyed,  amounts  almost  to  saint- 
liness  ;  for  his  sagacity  was  uniformly  devoted  to  the 
accomplishment  of  great  public  ends  of  policy  or 
beneficence. 

Edwards  was  born  three  years  before  Franklin,  and 
died  in  1758,  nearly  twenty  years  before  the  war  broke 
out.  Franklin  died  in  1790.  Both  being  representa- 
tive men,  may  properly  be  taken  as  points  of  departure 
in  considering  those  writers  and  thinkers  who  were 
educated  under  the  influences  of  the  pre-Revolutionary 
period  of  our  literary  history.  The  writings  of  Wash-' 
ington,  Adams,  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Jay, 
are  a  recognized  portion  of  our  literature,  because  the 
hoarded  wisdom  slowly  gathered  in  by  their  practical 
knowledge  of  life  crops  out  in  their  most  familiar 
correspondence.  A  truism  announced  by  such  men 
brightens  into  a  truth,  because  it  has  evidently  been 
tested  and  proved  by  their  experience  in  conducting 
affairs.  There  is  an  elemental  grandeur  in  Washing- 
ton's character  and  career  which  renders  impertinent 
all  mere  criticism  on  his  style ;  for  what  he  was  and 
what  he  did  are  felt  to  outvalue  a  hundredfold  what 
he  wrote,  except  we  consider  his  writings  as  mere 
records  of  his  sagacity,  wisdom,  patience,  disinterest- 
edness, intrepidity,  and  fortitude.  John  Adams  had 
a  large,  strong,  vehement  mind,  interested  in  all  ques- 
tions relating  to  government.  He  was  a  personage 


12  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

of  indomitable  individuality,  large  acquirements,  quick 
insight,  and  resolute  civic  courage ;  but  the  storm  and 
stress  of  public  affairs  gave  to  much  of  his  thinking 
a  character  of  intellectual  irritation,  rather  than  of 
sustained  intellectual  energy.  His  moral  impatience 
was  such  that  he  seems  to  fret  as  he  thinks.  Jeffer- 
son, of  all  our  early  statesmen,  was  the  most  efficient 
master  of  the  pen,  and  the  most  "  advanced  "  political 
thinker.  In  one  sense,  as  the  author  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  he  may  be  called  the  greatest, 
or  at  least  the  most  generally  known,  of  American 
authors.  But  in  his  private  correspondence  his  liter- 
ary talent  is  most  displayed,  for  by  his  letters  he  built 
up  a  party  which  ruled  the  United  States  for  nearly 
half  a  century,  and  which  was,  perhaps,  only  over- 
turned because  its  opponents  cited  the  best  portions 
of  Jefferson's  writings  against  conclusions  derived 
from  the  worst.  In  executive  capacity  he  was  rela- 
tively weak  ;  but  his  mistakes  in  policy  and  his  feeble- 
ness in  administration,  which  would  have  ruined  an 
ordinary  statesman  at  the  head  of  so  turbulent  a  com- 
bination of  irascible  individuals  as  the  democratic 
party  of  the  United  States,  were  all  condoned  by 
those  minor  leaders  of  faction  who,  yielding  to  the 
magic  persuasiveness  of  his  pen,  assured  their  follow- 
ers that  the  great  man  could  do  no  wrong.  Read  in 
connection  with  the  events  of  his  time,  Jefferson's 
writings  must  be  considered  of  permanent  value  and 
interest.  As  a  political  leader  he  was  literally  a  man 
of  letters ;  and  his  letters  are  masterpieces,  if  viewed 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  13 

as  illustrations  of  the  arts  by  which  political  leader- 
ship may  be  attained.  In  his  private  correspondence 
he  was  a  model  of  urbanity  and  geniality.  The  whole 
impression  derived  from  his  works  is  that  he  was  a 
better  man  than  his  enemies  would  admit  him  to  be, 
and  not  so  great  a  man  as  his  partisans  declared  him 
to  be.  Few  public  men  who  have  been  assailed  with 
equal  fury  have  exhibited  a  more  philosophical  temper 
in  noticing  assailants.  Though  occasionally  spiteful 
in  his  references  to  rivals,  his  leading  fault,  as  a  polit- 
ical leader,  was  not  so  much  in  being  himself  a 
libeller  as  in  the  protection  he  extended  to  libellers 
who  lampooned  men  obnoxious  to  him.  His  own 
mind  seems  to  have  been  singularly  temperate  ;  but 
he  had  a  marvellous  toleration  for  the  intemperance  of 
the  rancorous  defamers  of  Washington,  Hamilton, 
and  Adams.  The  Federalists  hated  him  with  such  a 
mortal  hatred,  and  showered  on  him  such  an  amount 
of  horrible  invective,  that  he  may  have  witnessed  with 
a  sarcastic  smile  the  still  coarser  and  fiercer  calum- 
nies which  the  band  of  assassins  of  character  in  his 
interest  showered  on  the  leading  Federalists.  Jeffer- 
son in  this  contest  proved  himself  capable  of  malice 
as  well  as  insincerity ;  but  in  a  scrutiny  of  his  Works 
it  will  be  found  that  individually  he  had  more  amenity 
of  temper  than  his  opponents,  for  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  in  his  political  career  he  was  stigmatized 
not  only  as. .the  most  wicked  and  foolish  of  politicians, 
but  as  the  sultan  of  a  negro  harem,  and  that  every 
circumstance  of  his  private  life  was  malignantly  mis- 


14  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

represented.  Many  eminent  New  England  divines 
regarded  him  as  an  atheist  as  well  as  an  anarchist, 
and  thundered  at  him  from  their  pulpits  as  though  he 
was  a  new  incarnation  of  the  evil  principle.  Jeffer- 
son's comparative  moderation,  in  view  of  the  savage 
fierceness  of  the  attacks  on  his  personal,  political,  and 
moral  character,  must  on  the  whole  be  commended ; 
but  still  his  moderation  covered  a  large  amount  of  pri- 
vate intrigue,  and  a  readiness  to  use  underhand  means 
to  compass  what  he  may  have  deemed  beneficent  ends. 
The  names  of  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Jay  are  in- 
separably associated  as  the  authors  of  the  "  Federal- 
ist," the  political  classic  of  the  United  States.  Of 
the  essays  it  contains,  Hamilton  wrote  fifty-one,  Mad- 
ison twenty-nine,  and  Jay  five.  It  is  generally  consid- 
ered that  Hamilton's  are  the  best.  Indeed,  Alexander 
Hamilton  was,  next  to  Franklin,  the  most  consummate 
statesman  among  the  band  of  eminent  men  who  had 
been  active  in  the  Revolution,  and  who  afterward 
labored  to  convert  a  loose  confederation  of  States 
into  a  national  government.  His  mind  was  as  plastic 
as  it  was  vigorous  and  profound.  It  was  the  appro- 
priate intellectual  expression  of  a  poised  nature  whose 
power  was  rarely  obtrusive,  because  it  was  half  con- 
cealed by  the  harmonious  adjustment  of  its  various 
faculties.  It  was  a  mind  deep  enough  to  grasp  prin- 
ciples, and  broad  enough  to  regard  relations,  and 
fertile  enough  to  devise  measures.  Indeed,  the  most 
practical  of  our  early  statesmen  was  also  the  most 
inventive.  He  was  as  ready  with  new  expedients  to 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  15 

meet  unexpected  emergencies  as  he  was  wise  in  sub- 
ordinating all  expedients  to  clearly  defined  principles. 
In  intellect  he  was  probably  the  most  creative  of  our 
early  statesmen,  as  in  sentiment  Jefferson  was  the 
most  widely  influential.  And  Hamilton  was  so  bent 
on  practical  ends  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the  repu- 
tation which  might  have  resulted  from  a  parade  of 
originality  in  the  means  he  devised,  for  their  accom- 
plishment. There  never  was  a  statesman  less  egotis- 
tic, less  desirous  of  labelling  a  policy  as  "my  "  policy; 
and  one  of  the  sources  of  his  influence  was  the  subtle 
way  in  which  he  insinuated  into  other  minds  ideas 
which  they  appeared  to  originate.  His  moderation, 
his  self-command,  the  exquisite  courtesy  of  his  man- 
ners, the  persuasiveness  of  his  ordinary  speech,  the 
fascination  of  his  extraordinary  speeches,  and  the 
mingled  dignity  and  ease  with  which  he  met  men  of 
all  degrees  of  intellect  and  character,  resulted  in 
making  his  political  partisans  look  up  to  him  as 
almost  an  object  of  political  adoration.  It  is  difficult 
to  say  what  this  accomplished  man  might  have  done 
as  a  leader  of  the  Federal  opposition  to  the  Demo- 
cratic administrations  of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  had 
he  not,  in  the  maturity  of  his  years  and  in  the  full  vigor 
of  his  faculties,  been  murdered  by  Aaron  Burr.  Noth- 
ing can  better  illustrate  the  folly  of  the  practice  of 
duelling  than  the  fact  that,  by  a  weak  compliance  with 
its  maxims,  the  most  eminent  of  American  statesmen 
died  by  the  hand  of  the  most  infamous  of  American 
demagogues.  Certainly  Hamilton  had  no  need  to 


16  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

accept  a  challenge  in  order  to  vindicate  his  claim  to 
courage.  That  had  been  abundantly  shown  in  the 
field,  at  the  bar,  in  the  cabinet,  before  the  people. 
There  was  hardly  any  form  of  courage,  military,  civic, 
or  moral,  in  which  he  had  not  proved  that  he  was 
insensible  to  every  kind  of  fear.  The  most  touching 
expression  of  it  was,  perhaps,  the  confession  he  pub- 
licly made  that  he  had  been  entrapped  into  a  guilty 
intrigue  with  a  wily  woman.  The  confession  was 
necessary,  to  vindicate  his  integrity  as  a  statesman, 
assailed  by  rancorous  enemies.  In  reading  it  one  :' j 
impressed  with  the  innate  dignity  of  character  which 
such  a  mortifying  disclosure  of  criminal  weakness 
could  not  essentially  degrade ;  and  the  allusion  to  his 
noble  wife  can  hardly  even  now  be  read  without  tears. 
"  This  confession,"  he  nobly  says,  "  is  not  made  with- 
out a  blush.  I  cannot  be  the  apologist  of  any  vice  be- 
cause the  ardor  of  passion  may  have  made  it  mine. 
I  can  never  cease  to  condemn  myself  for  the  pang 
which  it  may  inflict  on  a  bosom  eminently  entitled  to 
all  my  gratitude,  fidelity,  and  love ;  but  that  bosom 
will  approve  that,  even  at  so  great  an  expense,  I  should 
effectually  wipe  away  a  more  serious  stain  from  a  name 
which  it  cherishes  with  no  less  elevation  than  tender- 
ness. The  public,  too,  I  trust,  will  excuse  the  con- 
fession. The  necessity  of  it  to  my  defence  against  a 
more  heinous  charge  could  alone  have  extorted  from 
me  so  painful  an  indecorum." 

John  Jay,  another  of  the  wise  statesmen  of  the 
Revolution,  who  survived  to  perform  services  of  ines- 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE.  IT 

timable  value  to  the  new  constitutional  government, 
was  a  man  whose  character  needs  no  apologists. 
Webster  finely  said  that  "  the  spotless  ermine  of  the 
judicial  robe,  when  it  fell  on  the  shoulders  of  John 
Jay,  touched  nothing  not  as  spotless  as  itself."  His 
integrity  ran  down  into  the  very  roots  of  his  moral 
being,  and  honesty  was  in  him  a  passion  as  well  as  a 
principle.  A  great  publicist  as  well  as  an  incorrupt- 
ible patriot,  with  pronounced  opinions  which  exposed 
him  to  all  the  shafts  of  faction,  his  most  low-minded 
and  venomous  adversaries  felt  that  both  his  private 
and  public  character  were  unassailable.  The  cele- 
brated "  treaty  "  with  Great  Britain  which  he  nego- 
tiated as  the  minister  of  the  United  States  occasioned 
an  outburst  of  Democratic  wrath  such  as  few  Ameri- 
can diplomatists  have  ever  been  called  upon  to  face ; 
but  in  all  the  fury  of  the  opposition  to  it,  few  oppo- 
nents were  foolish  enough  to  assail  his  integrity  in 
assailing  his  judgment  and  general  views  of  public 
policy. 

Judge  Story  once  said  that  to  James  Madison  and 
Alexander  Hamilton  we  were  mainly  indebted  for  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It  is  curious  that^ 
to  Madison  we  are  also  mainly  indebted  for  those  Vir- 
ginia "  Resolutions  of  '98,"  which  have  been  used  to 
justify  nullification  and  secession.  With  all  his  men- 
tal ability,  Madison  had  not  much  original  force  of 
nature.  He  leaned  now  to  Hamilton,  now  to  Jeffer- 
son, and  at  last  fell  permanently  under  the  influence 
of  the  genius  of  the  latter.  He  was  lacking  in  that 


18  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

grand  moral  and  intellectual  impulse,  underlying  mere 
knowledge  and  logic,  which  distinguishes  the  man 
who  reasons  from  the  mere  reasoner.  His  character 
was  not  on  a  level  with  his  talents  and  acquirements ; 
his  much-vaunted  moderation  came  from  the  absence 
rather  than  from  the  control  of  passion  ;  and  his  un- 
derstanding, though  broad,  was  somewhat  mechanical 
in  its  operations,  and  had  no  foundation  in  a  corre- 
sponding breadth  of  nature.  The  "  Resolutions  of  '98," 
which  Southern  Democrats  came  gradually  to  consider 
as  of  equal  authority  with  the  Constitution,  were 
originally  devised  for  a  transient  party  purpose.  The 
passage  of  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws,  during  the 
administration  of  John  Adams,  provoked  Jefferson 
into  writing  a  new  "  Declaration  of  Independence  "  — 
in  this  case  directed  not  against  Great  Britain,  but 
against  the  United  States.  He  drew  up  a  series  of 
resolutions,  which  he  sent  to  one  of  his  subagents, 
George  Nicholas,  of  Kentucky,  to  be  adopted  by  the 
Legislature  of  that  State.  They  were,  with  some 
omissions,  passed.  These  resolutions  substantially 
declared  that  the  Federal  Constitution  was  a  compact 
between  sovereign  States,  and  that  in  case  of  a  sup- 
posed violation  of  the  compact,  each  party  to  it,  as  in 
other  cases  of  parties  having  no  common  judge,  had 
"  an  equal  right  to  judge  for  itself,  as  well  of  infrac- 
tions as  of  the  mode  and  measure  of  redress."  In  a 
somewhat  modified  form,  but  still  implicitly  contain- 
ing the  poison  of  nullification,  similar  resolutions, 
drafted  by  Madison,  were  passed  by  the  Legislature 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  19 

of  Virginia.  The  object  evidently  was  to  frighten  the 
general  government  by  a  threat  of  State  resistance  to 
its  authority,  without  any  settled  purpose  of  nullifica- 
tion or  rebellion.  When  Jefferson  and  Madison  be- 
came successively  Presidents  of  the  United  States, 
they  seemed  to  have  forgotten  their  "  resolutions," 
except  to  express  their  horror  when,  seventeen  years 
afterward,  a  few  mild  Federal  gentlemen,  meeting  at 
Hartford,  appeared  to  show  some  vague  intention  of 
availing  themselves  of  the  precious  constitutional  doc- 
trines which  Jefferson  and  Madison  had  so  boldly 
announced.  The  "  Resolutions  of  '98"  must  be  con- 
sidered an  important  portion  of  our  national  literature, 
for  they  were  exultingly  adduced  as  the  logical  justifi- 
cation of  the  gigantic  rebellion  of  1861.  It  is  rare, 
even  in  the  history  of  political  factions,  that  a  string 
of  cunningly  written  resolves,  designed  to  meet  a 
mere  party  emergency,  should  thus  cost  a  nation 
thousands  of  millions  of  treasure  and  hundreds  •  of 
thousands  of  lives. 

When  an  armed  ship  has  her  upper  deck  cut  down, 
and  is  thus  reduced  to  an  inferior  class,  it  is  said  that 
she  is  "  razeed."  Fisher  Ames  may  be  called,  on  this 
principle,  a  razeed  Burke.  Of  all  the  Federal  writers 
and  speakers  of  his  time,  he  bears  away  the  palm  of 
eloquence.  He  has  something  of  Burke's  affluence  of 
imagination,  something  of  Burke's  power  of  condens- 
ing political  wisdom  into  epigrammatic  apothegms, 
and  more  than  Burke's  hatred  of  "French  principles;" 
but  he  lacks  the  immense  moral  force  of  Burke's 


r 


20  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

individuality,  the  large  scope  of  his  reason,  the  over- 
whelming intensity  of  his  passion.  Still,  his  merits 
as  a  writer,  when  compared  with  those  of  most  of  his 
contemporaries,  are  so  striking  that  his  countrymen 
seem  unjust  in  allowing  such  an  author  to  drop  out  of 
the  memory  of  the  nation.  He  was  the  despairing 
champion  of  a  dying  cause  ;  he  decorated  the  grave 
of  Federalism  with  some  of  the  choicest  flowers  of 
rhetoric ;  but  the  flowers  are  now  withered,  and  the 
tomb  itself  hardly  receives  its  due  meed  of  honor. 

he  most  eminent  writers  of  the  period  which  ex- 
tends from  1776  to  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century  were  either  statesmen  or  theologians.  Be- 
tween these  the  poets,  essayists,  and  romancers  occupy 
a  comparatively  subordinate  place  ;  for  we  estimate  the 
value  of  a  literature,  not  so  much  by  the  character  of 
the  subjects  with  which  it  deals,  as  by  the  power  of 
mind  it  evinces  in  dealing  with  them.  As  it  regards 
our  scholars  and  men  of  letters  of  that  time,  it  must 

be  remembered  that  the  colonies  were  colonies  of  in- 

i 

tellectual  as  well  as  of  political  Britain,  and  that  their 
ideals  of  intellectual  excellence  were  formed  on  Eng- 
lish models.  Our  poets  could  only  give  a  local  color 
to  a  diction  which  was  essentially  that  of  Milton,  or 
Dryden,  or  Pope,  or  Goldsmith,  or  Gray.  They  im- 
itated these  poets  in  a  vain  attempt  to  attain  their 
elevation,  simplicity,  or  compactness  of  style  ;  but  in 
doing  this  they  merely  did  what  contemporary  versi- 
fiers in  London  or  Edinburgh  were  intent  on  doing. 
Their  verse  has  not  survived,  but  it  is  not  more  com- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  21 

pletely  forgotten  than  the  verse  of  Mason,  and  Hayley, 
and  Henry  James  Pye.  They  could  write  heroic  verse 
as  well  as  most  of  the  English  imitators  of  Pope,  and 
Pindaric  odes  as  well  as  most  of  the  English  imitators 
of  Gray.  Indeed,  the  verses  with  which  our  fore-  ] 
fathers  afflicted  the  world  are  generally  not  so  bad  as 
the  verses  of  the  poet  laureates  of  England,  from  the 
period  when  Dryden  was  deprived  of  the  laurel  to 
the  period  when  Southey  reluctantly  accepted  it. 
Timothy  Dwight,  an  eminent  patriot  and  theologian, 
was  early  smitten  with  the  ambition  to  be  a  poet.  He 
wrote  "  America,"  "  The  Conquest  of  Canaan  "  (an 
epic),  "  Greenfield  Hill,"  and  "  The  Triumph  of  In- 
fidelity." These  poems  are  not  properly  subjects  of 
criticism,  because  they  are  hopelessly  forgotten,  and 
no  critical  resurrectionist  can  give  them  that  slight 
appearance  of  vitality  which  would  justify  an  examin- 
ation of  their  merits  and  demerits.  Yet  they  are 
reasonably  good  of  their  kind,  and  "  Greenfield  Hill," 
especially,  contains  some  descriptions  which  are  al- 
most worthy  to  be  called  charming.  Dwight,  as  a 
Latin  scholar,  occasionally  felt  called  upon  to  show 
his  learning  in  his  rhymes.  Thus  in  one  of  his  poems 
he  characterizes  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  Roman 
lyrists  as  "  desipient "  Horace.  After  a  diligent  ex- 
ploration of  the  dictionary  the  reader  finds  that  de- 
sipient comes  from  a  Latin  word  signifying  "to  be 
wise,"  and  that  its  English  meaning  is  "  trifling, 
foolish,  playful."  It  might  be  supposed  that  in  the 
whole  range  of  English  poetry  there  was  no  descrip- 


22  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

tive  epithet  so  ludicrously  pedantic ;  but,  fortunately 
for  our  patriotism,  we  can  convict  Dry  den  of  a  still 
greater  sin  against  good  taste.  In  Dryden's  first  ode 
(1687)  for  Saint  Cecilia's  Day  we  find  the  following 

lines :  — 

"  Orpheus  could  lead  the  savage  race, 
And  trees  uprooted  left  their  place, 
Sequacious  of  the  lyre." 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Timothy  D wight's  "  desip- 
ient "  is  as  poetically  justifiable  as  John  Dryden's 
"  sequacious." 

Perhaps  the  most  versatile  of  our  early  writers  of 
verse  was  Philip  Freneau  (1752-1832),  a  man  of 
French  extraction,  possessing  the  talents  of  a  ready 
writer,  and  endowed  with  that  brightness  and  elasti- 
city of  mind  which  makes  even  shallowness  of  thought 
and  emotion  pleasing.  He  composed  patriotic  songs 
and  ballads,  satirized  Tories,  enjoyed  the  friendship 
of  Franklin,  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe, 
and  was  in  his  day  quite  a  literary  power.  Most  of  his 
writings,  whether  in  verse  or  prose,  were  "  occasional," 
and  they  died  with  the  occasions  which  called  them 
forth. 

Perhaps  a  higher  rank  should  be  assigned  to  John 
Trumbull  (1750-1831),  who  at  the  breaking  out  of 
the  Revolution  wrote  the  first  canto  of  "  McFingal," 
and  published  the  third  in  1782.  This  poem,  written 
in  Hudibrastic  verse,  is  so  full  of  original  wit  and 
humor  that  we  hardly  think  of  it  as  an  imitation  of 
Butler's  immortal  doggerel  until  we  are  reminded 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  23 

that  many  of  the  pithy  couplets  of  "  McFingal "  are 
still  quoted  as  felicitous  hits  of  the  ingenious  mind 
of  the  author  of  "  Hudibras."  The  immense  popular- 
ity of  the  poem  is  unprecedented  in  American  literary 
history.  The  first  canto  rapidly  ran  through  thirty 
editions.  Longfellow's  "  Evangeline  "  attained  about 
the  same  circulation  when  the  population  of  the  coun- 
try was  thirty  millions.  "  McFingal "  was  published 
when  our  population  was  only  three  millions.  The 
poem,  indeed,  is  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  forces 
of  the  Revolution,  because  as  a  satire  on  the  Tories 
it  penetrated  into  every  farm-house,  and  sent  the 
rustic  volunteers  laughing  into  the  ranks  of  Washing- 
ton and  Greene.  The  vigor  of  mind  and  feeling  dis- 
played throughout  the  poem  gives  an  impetus  to  its 
incidents  which  "  Hudibras,"  with  all  its  wonderful 
flashes  of  wit,  comparatively  lacks. 

Francis  Hopkinson  (1737-91)  was  another  of  the 
writers  who  served  the  popular  cause  by  seizing  every 
occasion  to  make  the  British  pretensions  to  rule  ridic- 
ulous as  well  as  hateful.  His  "  Battle  of  the  Kegs  " 
probably  laughed  a  thousand  men  into  the  Republican 
ranks.  His  son,  Francis  Hopkinson,  wrote  the  most 
popular  of  American  lyrics,  "  Hail,  Columbia ! "  It  is 
curious  that  this  ode  has  no  poetic  merit  whatever. 
There  is  not  a  line,  not  an  epithet,  in  the  whole  com- 
position which  distinguishes  it  from  the  baldest  prose, 

Robert  Treat  Paine,  Jr.,  was  originally  named  by 
his  father  Thomas ;  but  being  a  zealous  Federalist,  he 
induced  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  to  change 


24  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

his  cognomen  into  Robert  Treat,  because,  detesting 
the  theological  iconoclast  who  was  both  a  Democrat 
and  an  infidel,  he  desired,  he  said,  to  have  a  Christian 
name.  His  song  of  "  Adams  and  Liberty "  is  far 
above  Hopkinson's  "  Hail,  Columbia !  "  in  emphasis  of 
phrase,  richness  of  illustration,  and  resounding  har- 
mony of  versification.  Even  now  it  kindles  enthu- 
siasm, like  the  lyrics  of  Campbell,  though  it  is,  of 
course,  more  mechanical  in  structure  and  more  rhet- 
orical in  tone  than  the  "  Battle  of  the  Baltic  "  and  the 
"Mariners  of  England."  At  the  time,  however,  it 
roused  a  similar  enthusiasm. 

But  all  the  poets  of  the  United  States  were  threat- 
ened with  extinction  or  subordination  when  Joel  Bar- 
low (1755-1812)  appeared.  He  was,  according  to  all 
accounts,  an  estimable  man,  cursed  with  the  idea  not 
only  that  he  was  a  poet,  but  the  greatest  of  American 
poets ;  and  in  1808  he  published,  in  a  superb  quarto 
volume,  "  The  Columbiad."  It  was  also  published  in 
Paris  and  London.  The  London  "  Monthly  Magazine  " 
tried  to  prove  not  only  that  it  was  an  epic  poem,  but 
that  it  was  surpassed  only  by  the  Iliad,  the  JEneid, 
and  "  Paradise  Lost."  Joel  Barlow  is  fairly  entitled 
to  the  praise  of  raising  mediocrity  to  dimensions  al- 
most colossal.  Columbia  is,  thank  Heaven,  still  alive ; 
"The  Columbiad"  is,  thank  Heaven,  hopelessly  dead. 
There  are  some  elderly  gentlemen  still  living  who 
declare  that  they  have  read  "  The  Columbiad,"  and 
have  derived  much  satisfaction  from  the  perusal  of 
the  same  ;  but  their  evidence  cannot  stand  the  test  of 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  25 

cross-examination.  They  cannot  tell  what  the  poem 
is,  what  it  teaches,  and  what  it  means.  No  critic 
within  the  last  fifty  years  has  read  more  than  a 
hundred  lines  of  it,  and  even  this  effort  of  attention 
has  been  a  deadly  fight  with  those  merciful  tendencies 
in  the  human  organization  which  softly  wrap  the  over- 
worked mind  in  the  blessedness  of  sleep.  It  is  the 
impossibility  of  reading  "  The  Columbiad  "  which  pre- 
vents any  critical  estimate  of  its  numberless  demerits. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that,  admitting  all  the  poetic  talent 
that  our  versifiers  from  1776  to  1810  can  claim,  they 
are  exceeded  in  all  the  requisites  of  poetry  by  contem- 
porary prose  writers.  Fisher  Ames,  in  a  political 
article  contributed  to  a  newspaper,  often  displayed  a 
richness  of  imagery,  a  harmony  of  diction,  and  an 
intensity  of  sentiment  and  passion  which  would  have 
more  than  supplied  our  rhymers  with  materials  for  a 
canto.  John  Jay  was  not,  like  Fisher  Ames,  a  man 
who  thought  in  images,  yet  in  one  instance  his  fervid 
honesty  enabled  him  to  outleap  every  versifier  of  his 
time  in  the  exercise  of  impassioned  imagination.  In 
a  letter  addressed  to  the  States  of  the  Confederation 
he  showed  the  horrible  injustice  wrought  by  the  de- 
preciated currency  of  the  country.  "  Humanity,"  he 
said,  "  as  well  as  justice,  makes  this  demand  upon 
you ;  the  complaints  of  ruined  widows  and  the  cries 
of  fatherless  children,  whose  whole  support  has  been 
placed  in  your  hands  and  melted  away,  have  doubtless 
reached  you ;  take  care  that  they  ascend  no  higher" 
And  if  we  consider  poetry  in  its  inmost  essence,  what 


26  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

can  exceed  in  sentiment  and  imagination  the  state- 
ment in  prose  of  the  perfections  of  the  maiden  whom 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  austere  theologian,  was  so  for- 
tunate as  to  win  for  his  wife  ?  To  be  sure,  the  de- 
scription runs  back  to  the  year  1723,  when  Edwards 
was  only  twenty  years  old.  "  They  say,"  he  writes, 
"  there  is  a  young  lady  in  New  Haven  who  is  beloved 
of  that  Great  Being  who  made  and  rules  the  world, 
and  that  there  are  certain  seasons  in  which  this  Great 
Being,  in  some  way  or  other  invisible,  comes  to  her 
and  fills  her  mind  with  exceeding  sweet  delight,  and 
that  she  hardly  cares  for  anything  except  to  meditats 
on  Him  ;  that  she  expects  after  a  while  to  be  received 
up  where  He  is,  to  be  raised  up  out  of  the  world  and 
caught  up  into  heaven,  being  assured  that  He  loves 
her  too  well  to  let  her  remain  at  a  distance  from  Him 
always.  There  she  is  to  dwell  with  Him,  and  to  be 
ravished  with  His  love  and  delight  forever.  There- 
fore, if  you  present  all  the  world  before  her,  with  the 
richest  of  its  treasures,  she  disregards  it  and  cares 
not  for  it,  and  is  unmindful  of  any  pain  or  affliction. 
She  has  a  strange  sweetness  in  her  mind,  and  singular 
purity  in  her  affections ;  is  most  just  and  conscien- 
tious in  all  her  conduct ;  and  you  could  not  persuade 
her  to  do  anything  wrong  or  sinful  if  you  would  give 
her  all  the  world,  lest  she  should  offend  this  Great 
Being.  She  is  of  a  wonderful  sweetness,  calmness, 
and  universal  benevolence  of  mind,  especially  after 
this  Great  God  has  manifested  Himself  to  her  mind. 
She  will  sometimes  go  about  from  place  to  place  sing- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  27 

ing  sweetly,  and  seems  to  be  always  full  of  joy  and 
pleasure,  and  no  one  knows  for  what.  She  loves  to  be 
alone,  walking  in  the  fields  and  groves,  and  seems  to 
have  some  one  invisible  always  conversing  with  her." 
The  "  sage  and  serious "  Spenser,  in  all  his  lovely 
characterizations  of  feminine  excellence,  never  suc- 
ceeded in  depicting  a  soul  more  exquisitely  beautiful 
than  this  of  Sarah  Pierrepont  as  viewed  through  the 
consecrating  imagination  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 

The  leading  writers  of  fiction  during  the  period 
immediately  succeeding  the  Revolution  were  Susanna 
Rowson,  Hugh  Henry  Brackenridge,  and  Charles 
Brockden  Brown.  Mrs.  Rowson's  novel  of  "  Char- 
lotte Temple"  attained  the  unprecedented  circulation 
of  twenty-five  thousand  copies,  not  so  much  for  its 
literary  merits  as  on  account  of  its  foundation  in  a 
mysterious  domestic  scandal  which  affected  the  repu- 
tation of  a  number  of  prominent  American  families. 
Brackenridge  was  a  Democrat  of  a  peculiar  kind, 
generally  supporting  his  party,  but  reserving  to  him- 
self the  right  of  criticising  and  satirizing  it.  At  the 
time  the  antislavery  section  of  the  Democratic  party 
in  the  State  of  New  York  was  called  by  the  nickname 
of  "  Barnburners,"  Mr.  J.  G.  Saxe,  the  poet,  was  asked 
to  define  his  position.  "  I  am,"  he  replied,  "  a  Demo- 
crat with  a  proclivity  to  arson."  Brackenridge  at 
an  earlier  period  showed  a  similar  restlessness  in  his 
dissent  from  the  policy  of  a  party  whose  principles  he 
generally  advocated.  His  principal  work  is  "  Modern 
Chivalry;  or,  the  Adventures  of  Captain  Farrago 


28  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

and  Teague  O'Regan,  his  Servant."  The  author  had 
a  vague  idea  of  Americanizing  Don  Quixote  and 
Sancho  Panza.  The  adventures  are  somewhat  coarsely 
and  clumsily  portrayed,  but  it  gave  Brackenridge  an 
opportunity  to  satirize  the  practical  workings  of  De- 
mocracy, and  he  did  it  with  pitiless  severity.  Teague 
is  represented  as  a  creature  only  a  little  raised  above 
the  condition  of  a  beast,  ignorant,  credulous,  greedy, 
and  brutal,  lacking  both  common  sense  and  moral 
sense,  but  still  ambitious  to  attain  political  office,  and 
willing  to  put  himself  forward  as  a  candidate  for  posts 
the  duties  of  which  he  could  not  by  any  possibility  per- 
form. The  exaggeration  is  heightened  at  times  into 
the  most  farcical  caricature  ;  but  the  book  can  be  read 
even  now  with  profit  by  the  champions  of  civil  service 
reform.  There  are  also  in  the  course  of  the  narrative 
some  deadly  shafts  launched,  in  a  humorous  way, 
against  the  institution  of  slavery.  Charles  Brockden 
Brown  (1771-1810)  was  our  first  novelist  by  profes- 
sion. At  the  time  he  wrote  u  Arthur  Mervyn," 
"Edgar  Huntley,"  "  Clara  Howard,"  and  «  Wieland" 
the  remuneration  of  the  novelist  was  so  small  that  he 
could  only  make  what  is  called  "  a  living"  by  sacrifi- 
cing every  grace  and  felicity  of  style  to  the  inexorable 
need  of  writing  rapidly,  and  therefore  inaccurately. 
Brown,  in  his  depth  of  insight  into  the  morbid  phe- 
nomena of  the  human  mind,  really  anticipated  Haw- 
thorne ;  but  hurried  as  he  was  by  that  most  malignant 
of  literary  devils,  the  printer's,  he  produced  no  such 
masterpieces  of  literary  art  as  "  The  Scarlet  Letter," 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  29 

"  The  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  "  The  Marble  Faun." 
Brown  is  one  of  the  most  melancholy  instances  of  a 
genius  arrested  in  its  orderly  development  by  the 
pressure  of  circumstances.  In  mere  power  his  for- 
gotten novels  rank  very  high  among  the  products  of 
the  American  imagination.  And  it  should  be  added 
that  though  he  is  unread,  he  is  by  no  means  unread- 
able. "  Wieland  ;  or,  the  Transformation,"  has 
much  of  the  thrilling  interest  which  fastens  our  at- 
tention as  we  read  Godwin's  "  Caleb  Williams,"  or 
Hawthorne's  «  Scarlet  Letter."  With  all  his  faults, 
Brown  does  not  deserve  to  be  the  victim  of  the  bitter- 
est irony  of  criticism,  that,  namely,  of  not  being  con- 
sidered worth  the  trouble  of  a  critical  examination. 
His  writings  are  contemptuously  classed  among  dead 
books,  interesting  to  the  antiquary  alone.  Still,  they 
have  that  vitality  which  comes  from  the  presence  of 
genius,  and  a  little  stirring  of  the  ashes  under  which 
they  are  buried  would  reveal  sparks  of  genuine  fire. 

The  progress  of  theology  during  the  thirty  years 
which  followed  the  Revolution  is  illustrated  by  the 
works  of  many  men  of  mark  in  their  profession,  and 
by  two  men  of  original  though  somewhat  crotchety 
religious  genius,  Samuel  Hopkins  and  Nathaniel 
Emmons.  It  is  the  rightful  boast  of  Calvinism,  that 
whatever  judgment  may  be  passed  on  the  validity  of 
its  dogmas,  nobody  can  question  its  power  to  give 
strength  to  character,  to  educate  men  into  strict 
habits  of  deductive  reasoning,  and  to  comfort  regen- 
erated and  elected  souls  with  the  blissful  feeling  that 


30  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

they  are  in  direct  communication  with  the  Divine 
Mind.  But  even  before  the  Revolution  broke  out 
there  was  a  widely  diffused  though  somewhat  lazy 
mental  insurrection  against  its  doctrines  by  men  who 
were  formally  connected  with  its  churches ;  and 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  greatest  successor  of  Calvin, 
was  dismissed  from  his  pastoral  charge  in  Northamp- 
ton because  he  had  attempted  to  refuse  Christian 
fellowship  to  those  members  of  the  church  who, 
though  they  assented  to  Calvinistic  opinions,  had 
given  "  no  evidence  of  saving  grace  "  in  their  hearts. 
The  devil,  Edwards  said,  was  very  orthodox  in  faith, 
and  his  speculative  knowledge  in  divinity  exceeded 
that  of  "  a  hundred  saints  of  ordinary  education." 
It  was  but  natural  that  the  unconverted  members  of 
Orthodox  churches,  who  were  distinguished  more  by 
their  social  position,  wealth,  and  good  moral  charac- 
ter than  by  their  capacity  to  stand  Edwards's  test  of 
vital  piety,  should  end  in  doubting  the  truth  of  the 
doctrines  by  the  relentless  application  of  which  they 
were  proscribed  as  non-Christian.  The  Revolution 
brought  into  the  country  not  merely  French  soldiers, 
but  the  sceptical  philosophy  of  the  great  French 
writers  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  French  offi- 
cers were  practically  missionaries  of  unbelief.  The 
light  but  stinging  mockery  of  Voltaire  had  educated 
the  intelligent  French  mind  into  a  shallow  contempt 
for  all  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  religion ;  and 
in  fighting  for  our  liberties,  these  gay,  bright  French- 
men fought  also  against  our  accredited  theological 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  31 

faith.  There  is  something  ludicrous  in  this  contact 
of  the  French  with  the  Yankee  mind.  Men  like 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  John  Adams,  and  others,  had 
already  adopted  opinions  which  were  opposed  to 
Calvinism,  but  they  had  no  strong  impulse  to  an- 
nounce their  religious  convictions.  The  general  drift 
of  the  popular  mind  set  in  such  an  opposite  direction, 
that  they  hesitated  to  peril  their  political  aims  in  a 
vain  attempt  to  enforce  their  somewhat  languid  theo- 
logical views.  Unitarianism,  or  Liberal  Christianity, 
so  called,  had  not  yet  arisen  ;  and  the  protest  against 
Calvinism  first  took  the  form  of  an  open  denial  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Thus  Ethan  Allen  published  in 
1784  a  work  which  he  called  "  Reason  the  Only 
Oracle  of  Man."  He  summoned  the  fort  of  Ticonde- 
roga  to  surrender  in  "  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah, 
and  of  the  Continental  Congress ; "  he  afterward 
demanded  that  the  impregnable  fortress  of  Christian- 
ity should  surrender  in  the  name  of  Ethan  Allen. 
Christianity  declined  to  obey  the  summons  of  this 
stalwart  Yermont  soldier  —  doubtless  much  to  his 
surprise. 

But  the  man  who  was  the  most  influential  assailant 
of  the  orthodox  faith  was  Thomas  Paine.  He  was 
the  arch  infidel,  the  infidel  par  eminence,  whom  our 
early  and  later  theologians  have  united  in  holding  up 
as  a  monster  of  iniquity  and  unbelief.  The  truth  is 
that  Paine  was  a  dogmatic,  well-meaning  iconoclast, 
who  attacked  religion  without  having  any  religious 
experience  or  any  imaginative  perception  of  the  vital 


32  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

spiritual  phenomena  on  which  religious  faith  is  based. 
Nobody  can  read  his  "  Age  of  Reason,"  after  having 
had  some  preparatory  knowledge  derived  from  the 
study  of  the  history  of  religions,  without  wondering 
at  its  shallowness.  Paine  is,  in  a  spiritual  applica- 
tion of  the  phrase,  color-blind.  He  does  not  seem  to 
know  what  religion  is.  The  reputation  he  enjoyed 
was  due  not  more  to  his  masterly  command  of  all  the 
avenues  to  the  average  popular  mind  than  to  the  im- 
portance to  which  he  was  lifted  by  his  horrified  theo- 
logical adversaries.  His  merit  as  a  writer  against 
religion  consisted  in  his  hard,  almost  animal,  com- 
mon-sense, to  whose  tests  he  subjected  the  current 
theological  dogmas.  He  was  a  kind  of  vulgarized 
Voltaire.  His  eminent  services  to  the  country  during 
the  Revolutionary  war  were  generally  known  —  in- 
deed, were  acknowledged  by  the  leading  statesmen  of 
the  United  States.  His  memorable  pamphlet  enti- 
tled "  Common-Sense "  reached  a  circulation  of  a 
hundred  thousand  copies.  It  was  followed  up  by  a 
series  of  tracts,  under  the  general  name  of  "  The 
Crisis,"  which  were  almost  as  efficient  as  their  prede- 
cessor in  rousing,  sustaining,  and  justifying  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  nation.  He  was  the  author  of  the 
now  familiar  maxim  that  "  these  are  the  times  that 
try  men's  souls."  His  after-career  in  England  and 
France  resulted  in  his  pamphlet  on  "  The  Rights  of 
Man,"  directed  against  Burke's  assault  on  the  princi- 
ples and  methods  of  the  French  Revolutionists  of 
1789.  It  was  unmistakably  the  ablest  answer  that 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  33 

any  of  the  democrats  of  France,  England,  and  the 
United  States  had  made  to  Burke's  eloquent  and 
philosophic  impeachment  of  the  motives  and  conduct 
of  the  actors  in  that  great  convulsion.  One  passage 
still  survives,  because  it  almost  rivals  Burke  himself 
in  the  power  of  making  a  thought  tell  on  the  general 
mind  by  aptness  of  imagery.  "  Nature,"  says  Paine, 
"  has  been  kinder  to  Mr.  Burke  than  he  is  to  her. 
He  is  not  affected  by  the  realities  of  distress  touching 
his  heart,  but  by  the  showy  resemblance  of  it  striking 
his  imagination.  He  pities  the  plumage,  but  forgets 
the  dying  bird."  A  writer  thus  known  to  the  Ameri- 
can people,  not  only  as  the  champion  of  their  individ- 
ual rights,  but  of  the  rights  of  all  mankind,  could  not 
fail  to  exert  much  influence  when  he  brought  his  pe- 
culiar power  of  simple,  forcible,  and  sarcastic  state- 
ment to  an  assault  on  the  religion  of  the  country 
whose  nationality  he  had  done  so  much  to  establish. 
He  never  touched  the  inmost  sanctuaries  of  Calvinism, 
though  he  seriously  damaged  some  of  its  outworks  ; 
and  the  fault  of  the  eminent  divines  who  opposed  him 
was  in  throwing  all  their  strength  in  defending  what 
was  proved  in  the  end  to  be  indefensible. 

Indeed,  it  is  pitiable  to  witness  the  obstructions 
which  strong  minds  and  religious  hearts  raised  against 
an  inevitable  tendency  of  human  thought.  While  in- 
fidelity was  slowly  undermining  the  system  of  theol- 
ogy on  which  they  based  the  sentiment  and  the 
substance  of  religious  belief,  these  theologians  ex- 
erted their  powers  of  reasoning  in  controversies, 

3 


34  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

waged  against  each  other,  relating  to  the  question 
whether  deductive  arguments  from  adroitly  detached 
Scriptural  texts  could  fix  the  time  when  original  sin 
made  infants  liable  to  eternal  damnation.  Some 
argued  that  the  spiritual  disease  was  communicated 
in  the  moment  of  conception  ;  others,  a  little  more 
humane,  contended  that  the  child  must  be  born  be- 
fore it  could  righteously  be  damned ;  others  insisted 
that  a  certain  time  after  birth,  left  somewhat  unde- 
termined, but  generally  assigned  to  the  period  when 
the  child  attains  to  moral  consciousness,  should  elapse 
before  it  was  brought  under  the  penalties  of  the  uni- 
versal curse.  The  current  theology  of  his  time  could 
not  sustain  the  attacks  of  such  a  hard,  vulgar  rea- 
soner  as  Paine,  except  by  withdrawing  into  its  vital 
and  unassailable  position,  namely,  its  power  of  con- 
verting depraved  souls  into  loving  disciples  of  the 
Lord.  The  thinking  of  the  dominant  theologians  of 
that  period  has  been  quietly  repudiated  by  their  suc- 
cessors, and  it  has  failed  to  establish  any  place  in 
literature  because  it  was  exerted  on  themes  which 
the  human  mind  and  human  heart  have  gradually 
ignored.  Still,  the  practical  effects  of  the  teaching 
of  the  great  body  of  Orthodox  clergymen  have  been 
immense.  It  would  be  unjust  to  measure  their  influ- 
ence by  the  success  or  failure  of  theories  devised  by 
the  speculative  ingenuity  of  their  representative  di- 
v  vines.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  too  highly  the 
services  of  the  clergymen  of  the  country  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  national  character.  Their  sermons 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  35 

have  not  passed  into  literature.  A  band  of  "  minis- 
ters," contented  with  small  salaries,  on  which  they 
almost  starved,  and  with  no  reputation  beyond  their 
little  parishes,  labored  year  after  year  in  the  obscure 
work  of  purifying,  elevating,  and  regenerating  the 
individuals  committed  to  their  pastoral  charge  ;  and 
when  they  died,  in  all  the  grandeur  with  which  piety 
invests  poverty,  they  were  swiftly  succeeded  by  men 
who  valiantly  trod  the  same  narrow  path,  leading  to 
no  success  recognized  on  earth  as  brilliant  or  self- 
satisfying. 

The  period  of  our  literary  history  between  1810 
and  1840  witnessed  the  rise  and  growth  of  a  litera- 
ture which  was  influenced  by  the  new  "  revival  of 
letters "  in  England  during  the  early  part  of  the 
present  century,  represented  by  Wordsworth,  Cole- 
ridge, Southey,  Scott,  Campbell,  Byron,  Shelley, 
Keats,  and  Moore.  Most  of  these  eminent  men  were 
not  only  writers  but  powers ;  they  communicated 
spiritual  life  to  the  soul,  as  well  as  beautiful  images 
and  novel  ideas  to  the  mind ;  and  touching,  as  they 
did,  the  profoundest  sources  of  imagination,  reason, 
and  emotion,  they  quickened  latent  individual  genius 
into  original  activity  by  the  magnetism  they  exerted 
on  sympathetic  souls,  and  thus  stimulated  emulation 
rather  than  imitation.  The  wave  of  Wordsworthian- 
ism  swept  gently  over  New  England,  and  here  and 
there  found  a  mind  which  was  mentally  and  morally 
refreshed  by  drinking  deeply  of  this  new  water  of 
life.  But  Pope  was  still  for  a  long  time  the  pontiff 


36  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

of  poetry,  recognized  by  the  cultivated  men  of  Boston 
no  less  than  by  the  cultivated  men  of  London  and 
Edinburgh.  Probably  there  occurred  no  greater  and 
more  sudden  change  from  the  old  school  to  the  new 
than  in  the  case  of  a  precocious  lad  who  bore  the 
name  of  William  Cullen  Bryant.  At  the  age  of 
fourteen,  in  the  year  1808,  he  produced  a  versified 
satire  on  Jefferson's  administration  called  "  The 
Embargo."  It  was  just  as  good  and  just  as  bad__as 
most  American  imitations  of  Pope ;  but  the  boy  in- 
dicated a  facility  in  using  the  accredited  verse  of  the 
time  which  excited  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  his 
elders.  Vigor,  compactness,  ringing  emphasis  in  the 
constantly  recurring  rhymes,  —  all  seemed  to  show 
that  a  new  Pope  had  been  born  in  Massachusetts.  The 
genius  of  the  lad,  however,  was  destined  to  take  a 
different  road  to  fame  than  that  which  was  marked 
out  by  his  admirers.  He  read  the  lyrical  ballads  of 
Wordsworth  ;  and  his  friend  R.  H.  Dana  informs  us 
that  Bryant  confessed  to  him  that  on  reading  that 
volume  "  a  thousand  springs  seemed  to  gush  up  at 
once  into  his  heart,  and  the  face  of  Nature  of  a 
sudden  changed  into  a  strange  freshness  and  life." 
Accordingly  his  next  poem  of  any  importance  was 
"  Thanatopsis."  We  are  told  that  it  was  written 
when  he  was  only  eighteen.  It  was  published  in  the 
"  North  American  Review "  for  1816,  when  he  was 
twenty-two.  The  difference  of  four  years  makes  little 
difference  in  the  remarkable  fact  that  the  poem  indi- 
cates no  sign  of  youth  whatever.  The  perfection  of 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  37 

its  rhythm,  the  majesty  and  dignity  of  the  tone  of 
matured  reflection  which  breathes  through  it,  the 
solemnity  of  its  underlying  sentiment,  and  the  austere 
unity  of  the  pervading  thought,  would  deceive  almost 
any  critic  into  affirming  it  to  be  the  product  of  an 
imaginative  thinker  to  whom  "  years  had  brought  the 
philosophic  mind."  Still,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  poets  in  whom  meditation  and  imagination  have 
been  most  harmoniously  blended  have  produced  some 
of  their  best  works  when  they  were  comparatively 
young.  This  is  specially  the  case  as  regards  Words- 
worth. His  poem  on  revisiting  Tintern  Abbey,  written 
when  he  was  twenty-eight,  introduced  an  absolutely 
new  element  into  English  poetry,  and  was  specially 
characterized  by  that  quality  of  calm,  deep,  solid  re* 
flection  which  is  commonly  considered  to  be  the  pecu- 
liarity of  genius  when  it  has  attained  the  maturity 
which  age  and  experience  alone  can  give.  The  won- 
derful "  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality  from 
the  Recollections  of  Early  Childhood,"  written  about 
four  years  later,  indicates  the  highest  point  which  the 
poetic  insight  and  the  philosophic  wisdom  of  Words- 
worth ever  reached  ;  and  it  ought,  on  ordinary  prin- 
ciples of  criticism,  to  have  been  written  thirty  years 
later  than  the  date  which  marks  its  birth.  Nothing 
which  Wordsworth  afterward  wrote,  though  precious 
in  itself,  displayed  anything  equal  to  these  poems  in 
maturity  of  thought  and  imagination.  It  is  doubtful 
if  Bryant's  "  Thanatopsis  "  has  been  excelled  by  the 
many  deep  and  beautiful  poems  which  he  has  written 


38  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

since.  In  his  case,  as  in  that  of  Wordsworth,  we  are 
puzzled  by  the  old  head  suddenly  erected  on  young 
shoulders.  They  leap  over  the  age  of  passion  by  a 
single  bound,  and  become  poetic  philosophers  at  an 
age  when  other  poets  are  in  the  sensuous  stage  of 
imaginative  development.  In  estimating  the  claim  of 
Bryant  to  be  ranked  as  the  foremost  of  American 
poets,  it  may  be  said  that  he  opened  a  rich  and  deep, 
if  somewhat  narrow,  vein,  which  he  has  worked  with 
marvellous  skill,  and  that  he  has  obtained  more  pure 
gold  from  his  mine  than  many  others  who  have  sunk 
shafts  here  and  there  into  more  promising  deposits 
of  the  precious  metal.  He  is,  perhaps,  unequalled 
among  our  American  poets  in  his  grasp  of  the  ele- 
mental life  of  nature.  His  descriptions  of  natural 
scenery  always  imply  that  nature,  in  every  aspect  it 
turns  to  the  poetic  eye,  is  thoroughly  alive.  Nobody 
can  read  his  poems  called  "  The  Evening  Wind," 
"Green  River,"  "The  Death  of  the  Flowers,"  the 
invocation  "  To  a  Water-Fowl,"  "  An  Evening  Rev- 
erie," "  To  the  Fringed  Gentian,"  not  to  mention 
others,  without  feeling  that  this  poet  has  explored  the 
inmost  secrets  of  nature,  and  has  shown  how  natural 
objects  can  be  wedded  to  the  human  mind  in  "  love 
and  holy  passion."  In  the  abstract  imagination  which 
celebrates  the  fundamental  idea  and  ideal  of  our 
American  life,  what  can  excel  his  noble  verses  on 
"  The  Antiquity  of  Freedom  "  ?  "  The  Land  of 
Dreams  "  is  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  of  Bryant's 
poems,  as  in  it  thought,  sentiment,  and  imagination 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  39 

are  more  completely  dissolved  in  melody  than  in  any 
other  of  his  poems.  In  a  criticism  of  the  range  of 
Bryant's  mind  it  must  be  remembered  that  his  poetry 
is  only  one  expression  of  it.  His  life  has  been  gen- 
erally passed  in  political  struggles  which  have  called 
forth  all  his  powers  of  statement  and  reasoning,  based 
on  a  patient  study  of  the  phenomena  presented  by 
our  social  and  political  life.  As  the  editor  of  the 
New  York  "  Evening  Post,"  he  has  shown  himself  an 
able  publicist,  an  intelligent  economist,  and  a  resolute 
party  champion.  And  at  a  period  of  life  when  most 
men  are  justified  in  resting  from  their  labors,  he 
undertook  the  gigantic  task  of  translating  into  blank 
verse  such  as  few  but  he  can  give,  the  whole  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey. 

Another  eminent  writer  of  the  period  —  and  one  who 
also  happily  survives,  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty- 
eight,  an  object  of  the  deserved  respect  and  admira- 
tion of  his  countrymen- — was  Richard  Henry  Dana. 
His  articles  in  the  "  North  American  Review,"  from 
1817  to  1819,  were  remarkable  compositions  for  the 
time.  The  long  paper  on  the  English  poets,  published 
in  1819,  surveys  the  whole  domain  of  English  poetry 
from  Chaucer  to  Wordsworth.  It  exhibits  a  compre- 
hensiveness of  taste,  a  depth  and  delicacy  of  critical 
perception,  and  a  grasp  of  the  spiritual  elements 
which  enter  into  the  highest  efforts  of  creative  minds, 
unexampled  in  any  previous  American  contribution 
to  the  philosophy  of  criticism.  His  discernment  of 
the  relative  rank  and  worth  of  British  poets  is 


40  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

specially  noticeable.  He  interpreted  before  he  judged ; 
and  in  interpreting  he  showed,  in  old  George  Chap- 
man's phrase,  that  he  possessed  the  "  fit  key,"  that  is, 
the  "  deep  and  treasurous  heart," 

"  With  poesy  to  open  poesy." 

Even  among  the  cultivated  readers  of  the  "  North 
American"  there  were  few  who  could  appreciate 
Dana's  profound  analysis  of  the  genius  of  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge.  In  1821  he  began  «  The  Idle 
Man,"  of  which  six  numbers  were  published.  In  this 
appeared  his  celebrated  paper  on  Edmund  Kean,  the 
best  piece  of  theatrical  criticism  in  American  litera- 
ture ;  two  novels,  "  Tom  Thornton  "  and  "  Paul  Fel- 
ton,"  dealing  with  the  darker  passions  of  our  nature 
in  a  style  so  abrupt,  a  feeling  so  intense,  and  a  moral 
purpose  so  inexorable  that  they  rather  terrified  than 
pleased  the  "  idle  men  "  who  read  novels ;  and  several 
of  those  beautiful  meditations  on  nature  and  human 
life,  in  which  the  author  exhibits  himself  as 

"  A  being  breathing  thoughtful  breath, 
A  traveller  betwixt  life  and  death." 

"  The  Idle  Man  "  did  not  succeed.  In  1827  he  pub- 
lished a  thin  volume  entitled  "  The  Buccaneer,  and 
Other  Poems."  These  are  sufficient  to  give  him  a 
high  rank  among  American  poets,  though  they  have 
obtained  but  little  hold  on  popular  sympathy.  "  The 
Buccaneer"  is  remarkable  for  its  representation, 
equally  clear,  of  external  objects  and  internal  moods 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  41 

of  thought  and  passion.  In  one  sense  it  is  the  most 
"  objective  "  of  poems  ;  in  another,  the  most  "  subjec- 
tive." The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  Dana's  over- 
powering conception  of  the  terrible  reality  of  sin  —  a 
conception  almost  as  strong  as  that  which  was  fixed 
in  the  imagination  of  Jonathan  Edwards  —  interferes 
with  the  artistic  disposition  of  his  imagined  scenes 
and  characters,  and  touches  even  some  of  his  most 
enchanting  pictures  with  a  certain  baleful  light.  An 
uneasy  spiritual  discontent,  a  moral  despondency,  is 
evident  in  his  verse  as  well  as  in  his  prose,  and  his 
large  powers  of  reason  and  imagination  seem  never  to 
have  been  harmoniously  blended  in  his  artistic  crea- 
tions. Still,  he  remains  one  of  the  prominences  of 
our  literature,  whether  considered  as  poet,  novelist, 
critic,  or  general  thinker. 

Washington  Allston,  the  greatest  of  American 
painters,  was  also  a  graceful  poet.  "  His  mind,"  says 
Mr.  Dana,  "  seems  to  have  in  it  the  glad  but  gentle 
brightness  of  a  star,  as  you  look  up  to  it,  sending  pure 
influences  into  your  heart,  and  making  it  kind  and 
cheerful."  As  a  poet,  however,  he  is  now  but  little 
known.  As  a  prose  writer,  his  lectures  on  Art,  and 
especially  his  romance  of  "  Monaldi,"  show  that  he 
could  paint  with  the  pen  as  well  as  with  the  brush. 
It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  "  Monaldi "  has  not 
obtained  a  permanent  place  in  our  literature.  There 
is  in  it  one  description  of  a  picture  representing  the 
visible  struggle  of  a  soul  in  the  toils  of  sin  which  in 
intensity  of  conception  and  passion  exceeds  any  pic- 


42  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

ture  he  ever  painted.  The  full  richness  of  Allston's 
mind  was  probably  only  revealed  to  those  who  for 
years  enjoyed  the  inestimable  privilege  of  hearing 
him  converse.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  no  copious 
notes  were  taken  of  his  conversations.  Mrs.  Jame- 
son, in  her  visit  to  the  United  States,  was  so  surprised 
to  witness  such  opulence  of  thought  conveyed  in  such 
seemingly  careless  talk,  that  she  took  a  few  notes  of 
his  deep  and  beautiful  sayings.  It  would  have  been 
well  if  Dana  and  others  who  from  day  to  day  and  year 
to  year  saw  the  clear  stream  of  conversation  flow  ever 
on  from  the  same  inexhaustible  mind,  had  made  the 
world  partakers  of  the  wealth  with  which  they  were 
enriched.  Allston,  indeed,  was  one  of  those  men 
whose  works  are  hardly  the  measure  of  their  powers 
—  who  can  talk  better  than  they  can  write,  and  con- 
ceive more  vividly  than  they  can  execute. 

The  "  revival  "  of  American  literature  in  New  York 
differed  much  in  character  from  its  revival  in  New 
England.  In  New  York  it  was  purely  human  in  tone ; 
in  New  England  it  was  a  little  superhuman  in  tone. 
In  New  England  they  feared  the  devil ;  in  New  York 
they  dared  the  devil ;  and  the  greatest  and  most  orig- 
inal literary  dare-devil  in  New  York  was  a  young 
gentleman  of  good  family,  whose  "  schooling  "  ended 
with  his  sixteenth  year,  who  had  rambled  much  about 
the  island  of  Manhattan,  who  had  in  his  saunterings 
gleaned  and  brooded  over  many  Dutch  legends  of  an 
elder  time,  who  had  read  much  but  had  studied  little, 
who  possessed  fine  observation,  quick  intelligence,  a 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  43 

genial  disposition,  and  an  indolently  original  genius 
in  detecting  the  ludicrous  side  of  things,  and  whose 
name  was  Washington  Irving.  After  some  prelimi- 
nary essays  in  humorous  literature  his  genius  arrived 
at  the  age  of  ^discretion,  and  he  produced  at  the  age 
of  twenty-six  the  most  deliciously  audacious  work  of 
humor  in  our  literature,  namely,  "  The  5istory  of 
New  York,  by  Diedrich  Knickerbocker."  It  is  said 
of  some  reformers  that  they  have  not  only  opinions, 
but  the  courage  of  their  opinions.  It  may  be  said  of 
Irving  that  he  not  only  caricatured,  but  had  the 
courage  of  his  caricatures.  The  persons  whom  he 
covered  with  ridicule  were  the  ancestors  of  the  leading 
families  of  New  York,  and  these  families  prided  them- 
selves on  their  descent.  After  the  publication  of  such 
a  book  he  could  hardly  enter  the  "  best  society  "  of 
New  York,  to  which  he  naturally  belonged,  without 
running  the  risk  of  being  insulted,  especially  by  the 
elderly  women  of  fashion ;  but  he  conquered  their 
prejudices  by  the  same  grace  and  geniality  of  manner, 
by  the  same  unmistakable  tokens  that  he  was  an  in- 
born gentleman,  through  which  he  afterward  won  his 
way  into  the  first  society  of  England,  France,  Ger- 
many, Italy,  and  Spain.  Still,  the  promise  of  Knick- 
erbocker was  not  fulfilled.  That  book,  if  considered 
as  an  imitation  at  all,  was  an  imitation  of  Rabelais,  or 
Swift,  or  of  any  author  in  any  language  who  had 
shown  an  independence  of  all  convention,  who  did 
not  hesitate  to  commit  indecorums,  and  who  laughed 
at  all  the  regalities  of  the  world.  The  author  lived 


44  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

long  enough  to  be  called  a  timid  imitator  of  Addison 
and  Goldsmith.  In  fact,  he  imitated  nobody.  His 
genius,  at  first  riotous  and  unrestrained,  became 
tamed  and  regulated  by  a  larger  intercourse  with  the 
world,  by  the  saddening  experience  of  life,  and  by  the 
gradual  development  of  some  deep  sentiments  which 
held  in  check  the  audacities  of  his  wit  and  humor. 
But  even  in  the  portions  of  "  The  Sketch-Book  "  relat- 
ing to  England  it  will  be  seen  that  his  favorite  authors 
belonged  rather  to  the  age  of  Elizabeth  than  to  the 
age  of  Anne.  In  "  Bracebridge  Hall "  there  is  one 
chapter  called  "  The  Rookery,"  which  in  exquisitely 
poetic  humor  is  hardly  equalled  by  the  best  produc- 
tions of  the  authors  he  is  said  to  have  made  his 
models.  That  he  possessed  essential  humor  and 
pathos,  is  proved  by  the  warm  admiration  he  excited 
in  such  masters  of  humor  and  pathos  as  Scott  and 
Dickens  ;  and  style  is  but  a  secondary  consideration 
when  it  expresses  vital  qualities  of  genius.  If  he 
subordinated  energy  to  elegance,  he  did  it,  not  be- 
cause he  had  the  ignoble  ambition  to  be  ranked  as  "  a 
fine  writer,"  but  because  he  was  free  from  the  ambi- 
tion, equally  ignoble,  of  simulating  a  passion  which 
he  did  not  feel.  The  period  which  elapsed  between 
the  publication  of  Knickerbocker's  history  and  "  The 
Sketch-Book"  was  ten  years.  During  this  time  his 
mind  acquired  the  habit  of  tranquilly  contemplating 
the  objects  which  filled  his  imagination,  and  what  it 
lost  in  spontaneous  vigor  it  gained  in  sureness  of  in- 
sight and  completeness  of  representation.  "  Rip  Yan 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  45 

Winkle  "  and  "  The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  "  have 
not  the  humorous  inspiration  of  some  passages  in 
Knickerbocker,  but  perhaps  they  give  more  perma- 
nent delight,  for  the  scenes  and  characters  are  so  har- 
monized that  they  have  the  effect  of  a  picture,  in 
which  all  the  parts  combine  to  produce  one  charming 
whole.  Besides,  Irving  is  one  of  those  exceptional 
authors  who  are  regarded  by  their  readers  as  personal 
friends,  and  the  felicity  of  nature  by  which  he  obtained 
this  distinction  was  expressed  in  that  amenity,  that 
amiability  of  tone,  which  some  of  his  austere  critics 
have  called  elegant  feebleness.  As  a  biographer  and 
historian,  his  "  Life  of  Columbus  "  and  his  "  Life  of 
Washington"  have  indissolubly  connected  his  name 
with  the  discoverer  of  the  American  continent  and 
the  champion  of  the  liberties  of  his  country.  In  "  The 
Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada "  and  "  The 
Alhambra "  he  occupies  a  unique  position  among 
those  writers  of  fiction  who  have  based  fiction  on  a 
laborious  investigation  into  the  facts  of  history.  His 
reputation  is  not  local,  but  is  recognized  by  all  culti- 
vated people  who  speak  the  English  language.  If 
Great  Britain  established  an  English  intellectual  col- 
ony in  the  United  States,  such  men  as  Irving  and 
Cooper  may  be  said  to  have  retorted  by  establishing 
an  American  intellectual  colony  in  England. 

James  Fenimore  Cooper  was  substantially  a  New 
Yorker,  though  accidentally  born  (in  1789)  in  New 
Jersey.  He  entered  Yale  College  in  1802,  and  three 
rears  after  left  it  without  graduating,  having  obtained 


46  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

a  midshipman's  warrant  in  the  United  States  navy. 
He  remained  in  the  naval  service  for  six  years.  In 
1811  he  married,  and  in  1821  began  a  somewhat 
memorable  literary  career  by  the  publication  of  a 
novel  of  English  life,  called  "  Precaution,"  which 
failed  to  attract  much  attention.  In  the  same  year, 
however,  he  published  another  novel,  relating  to  the 
Revolutionary  period  of  our  history,  called  "  The  Spy," 
and  rose  at  once  to  the  position  of  a  power  of  the  first 
class  in  our  literature.  The  novels  which  immediately 
followed  did,  on  the  whole,  increase  his  reputation ; 
and  after  the  publication  of  "  The  Red  Rover,"  in 
1827,  his  works  were  not  only  eagerly  welcomed  by 
his  countrymen,  but  were  translated  into  almost  all 
the  languages  of  Europe.  Indeed,  it  seemed  at  one 
time  that  Cooper's  fame  was  co-extensive  with  Ameri- 
can commerce.  The  novels  were  intensely  American 
in  spirit,  and  intensely  American  in  scenery  and  charZ 
peters;  butjthey  were  also  found  to  contain  in  them 
something  which  appealed  to  human  nature  every- 
where. Much  of  their  popularity  was  doubtless  due 
to  Cooper's  vivid  presentation  of  the  wildest  aspects 
of  nature  in  a  comparatively  new  country,  and  his 
creation  of  characters  corresponding  to  their  physical 
environment ;  but  the  essential  influence  he  exerted  is 
to  be  referred  to  the  pleasure  all  men  experience  in 
the  kindling  exhibition  of  man  as  an  active  being. 
No  Hamlets  or  Werthers  or  Rene's  or  Childe  Harolds 
were  allowed  to  tenant  his  woods  or  appear  on  his 
quarter-decks.  Will,  and  the  trained  sagacity  and 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  47 

experience  directing  will,  were  the  invigorating  ele- 
ments of  character  which  he  selected  for  romantic 
treatment.  Whether  the  scene  be  laid  in  the  primi- 
tive forest  or  on  the  ocean,  his  men  are  always  strug- 
gling with  each  other  or  with  the  forces  of  nature. 
This  primal  quality  of  robust  manhood  all  men 
understand,  and  it  shines  triumphantly  through  the 
interposing  fogs  of  French,  German,  Italian,  and  Rus- 
sian translations.  A  physician  of  the  mind  could 
hardly  prescribe  a  more  efficient  tonic  for  weak  and 
sentimental  natures  than  a  daily  diet  made  up  of  the 
most  bracing  passages  in  the  novels  of  Cooper. 

Another  characteristic  of  Cooper,  which  makes  him 
universally  acceptable,  is  his  closeness  to  nature.  He 
agrees  with  Wordsworth  in  this,  that  in  all  his  de- 
scriptions of  natural  objects  he  indicates  that  he  and 
nature  are  familiar  acquaintances,  and,  as  Dana  says, 
have  "talked  together."  He  takes  nothing  at  second- 
hand. If  brought  before  a  justice  of  the  peace,  he 
could  solemnly  swear  to  the  exact  truth  of  his  repre- 
sentations without  running  any  risk  of  being  prose- 
cuted for  perjury.  Cooper  as  well  as  Wordsworth 
took  nature,  as  it  were,  at  first-hand,  the  perceiving 
mind  coming  into  direct  contact  with  the  thing  per- 
ceived ;  but  Wordsworth  primarily  contemplated  na- 
ture as  the  divinely  appointed  food  for  the  nourishment 
of  the  spirit  that  meditates,  while  Cooper  felt  its  power  \ 
as  a  stimulus  to  the  spirit  that  acts.  No  two  minds 
sould,  in  many  respects,  be  more  different,  yet  both 
agree  in  the  instinctive  sagacity  which  detects  the 


48  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

heroic  under  the  guise  of  the  homely.  The  greatest 
creation  of  Cooper  is  the  hunter  and  trapper,  Leather- 
stocking,  who  appears  in  five  of  his  best  novels, 
namely,  "The  Pioneers,"  "The  Last  of  the  Mohi- 
cans," "  The  Prairie,"  "  The  Pathfinder,"  and  "  The 
Deerslayer,"  and  who  is  unmistakably  the  life  of  each. 
The  simplicity,  sagacity,  and  intrepidity  of  this  man 
of  the  woods,  his  quaint  sylvan  piety  and  humane 
feeling,  the  perfect  harmony  established  between  his 
will  and  reason,  his  effectiveness  equal  to  all  occasions, 
and  his  determination  to  dwell  on  those  vanishing 
points  of  civilization  which  faintly  mark  the  domain 
of  the  settler  from  that  of  the  savage,  altogether  com- 
bine to  make  up  a  character  which  is  admired  equally 
in  log-cabins  and  palaces.  Wordsworth,  in  one  of  the 
most  exquisite  of  his  minor  poems,  — "  Three  Years 
She  grew  in  Sun  and  Shower,"  —  has  traced  the  proc- 
ess of  Nature  in  making  "  a  lady  of  her  own."  Cer- 
tainly Leatherstocking  might  be  quoted  as  a  successful 
attempt  of  the  same  austere  goddess  to  make,  out  of 
ruder  materials,  a  man  of  "  her  own." 

Cooper  lived  to  write  thirty-four  novels,  the  merits 
of  which  are  so  unequal  that  at  times  we  are  puzzled 
to  conceive  of  them  as  the  products  of  one  mind.  His 
failures  are  not  to  be  referred  to  that  decline  of  power 
which  accompanies  increasing  age,  for  "  The  Deer- 
slayer,"  one  of  his  best  novels,  was  written  six  years 
after  his  worst  novel,  "  The  Monikins."  He  often 
failed,  early  as  well  as  late  in  his  career,  not  because 
his  faculties  were  impaired,  but  because  they  were 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  49 

misdirected.  One  of  the  secrets  of  his  fascination 
was  also  one  of  the  causes  of  his  frequent  dulness. 
He  equalled  De  Foe  in  the  art  of  giving  reality  to  ro- 
mance by  the  dexterous  accumulation  and  manage- 
ment of  details.  In  his  two  great  sea  novels,  "  The 
Pilot "  and  "  The  Red  Rover,"  the  important  events 
are  preceded  by  a  large  number  of  minor  incidents, 
each  of  which  promises  to  be  an  event.  The  rocks 
which  the  vessel  by  cunning  seamanship  escapes  are 
described  as  minutely  as  the  rocks  on  which  she  is 
finally  wrecked.  It  is  difficult  for  the  reader  to  con- 
ceive that  he  is  not  reading  an  account  of  an  actual 
occurrence.  He  unconsciously  transports  himself  to 
the  deck  of  the  ship,  participates  in  all  the  hopes  and 
fears  of  the  crew,  thanks  God  when  the  keel  just 
grazes  a  ledge  without  being  seriously  injured,  and 
finally  goes  down  into  the  "  hell  of  waters  "  in  com- 
pany with  his  imagined  associates.  In  such  scenes  ; 
the  imagination  of  the  reader  is  so  excited  that  he 
has  no  notion  whether  the  writer's  style  is  good  or 
bad.  He  is  made  by  some  magic  of  words  to  see,  feel, 
realize,  the  situation  ;  the  verbal  method  by  which 
the  miracle  is  wrought  he  entirely  ignores  or  over-  \ 
looks.  But  then  the  preliminaries  to  these  grand 
scenes  which  exhibit  intelligent  man  in  a  life-and-  ' 
death  contest  with  the  unintelligent  forces  of  nature 
—  how  tiresome  they  often  are  !  The  early  chapters 
of  "  The  Red  Rover,"  for  example,  are  dull  beyond 
expression.  The  author's  fondness  for  detail  tres- 
passes on  all  the  reserved  fund  of  human  patience. 

4 


50  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

It  is  only  because  "  expectation  sits  i'  the  air "  that 
we  tolerate  his  tediousness.  If  we  desire  to  witness 
the  conduct  of  the  man-of-war  in  the  tempest  and  the 
battle,  we  must  first  submit  to  follow  all  the  cumber- 
some details  by  which  she  is  slowly  detached  from 
the  dock  and  laboriously  piloted  into  the  open  sea. 
There  is  more  "  padding  "  in  Cooper's  novels  than  in 
those  of  any  author  who  can  make  any  pretensions  to 
rival  him.  His  representative  sailors,  Long  Tom 
Coffin,  Tom  Tiller,  Nightingale,  Bolthrope,  Trysail, 
Bob  Yarn,  not  to  mention  others,  are  admirable  as 
characters,  but  they  are  allowed  to  inflict  too  much  of 
their  practical  wisdom  on  the  reader.  In  fact,  it  is  a 
great  misfortune,  as  it  regards  the  permanent  fame 
of  Cooper,  that  he  wrote  one-third,  at  least,  of  his 
novels  at  all,  and  that  he  did  not  condense  the  other 
two-thirds  into  a  third  of  their  present  length. 

Cooper,  on  his  return  from  Europe  in  1833  or  1834, 
published  a  series  of  novels  satirizing  what  he  consid- 
ered the  faults  and  vices  of  his  countrymen.  The 
novels  have  little  literary  merit,  but  they  afforded  an 
excellent  opportunity  to  exhibit  the  independence,  in- 
trepidity, and  integrity  of  the  author's  character.  It 
is  a  pity  he  ever  wrote  them ;  still,  they  proved  that 
he  became  a  bad  novelist  in  order  to  perform  what  he 
deemed  to  be  the  duties  of  a  good  citizen.  Indeed,  as 
a  brave,  high-spirited,  noble-minded  man,  somewhat 
too  proud  and  dogmatic,  but  thoroughly  honest,  he 
was  ever  on  a  level  with  the  best  characters  in  his 
best  works. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  51 

The  names  of  Joseph  Rodman  Drake  and  Fitz- 
Greene  Halleck  are  connected,  not  merely  by  per- 
sonal friendship,  but  by  partnership  in  poetry.  Both 
were  born  in  the  same  year,  1795,  but  Drake  died  in 
1820,  while  Halleck  survived  to  1867.  Halleck,  in 
strength  of  constitution  as  well  as  in  power  of  mind, 
was  much  superior  to  his  fragile  companion ;  but 
Drake  had  a  real  enthusiasm  for  poetry,  which  Hal- 
leck, though  a  poet,  did  not  possess.  Drake's  "  Cul- 
prit Fay  "  is  an  original  American  poem,  formed  out 
of  materials  collected  from  the  scenery  and  traditions 
of  the  classical  American  river,  the  Hudson ;  but  it 
was  too  hastily  written  to  do  justice  to  the  fancy  by 
which  it  was  conceived.  His  "  Ode  on  the  American 
Flag  "  derives  its  chief  strength  from  the  resounding 
quatrain  by  which  it  is  closed,  and  these  four  lines 
were  contributed  by  Halleck.  Indeed,  Drake  is,  on 
the  whole,  less  remembered  by  his  own  poems  than 
by  the  beautiful  tribute  which  Halleck  made  to  his 
memory.  They  were  coadjutors  in  the  composition 
of  the  "  Croaker  Papers,"  originally  contributed  to 
the  New  York  "  Evening  Post ; "  but  the  superiority 
of  Halleck  to  his  friend  is  manifest  at  the  first  glance. 
One  of  the  puzzles  which  arrest  the  attention  of  a 
historian  of  American  literature  is  to  account  for  the 
strange  indifference  of  Halleck  to  exercise  often  the 
faculty  which  on  occasions  he  showed  he  possessed 
in  superabundance.  All  the  subjects  he  attempted 
—  the  "  Croaker  Papers,"  "  Fanny,"  "  Burns," 
"Red  Jacket,"  "Alnwick  Castle,"  «  Connecticut,"  the 


52  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

magnificent  heroic  ode,  "  Marco  Bozzaris  "  —  show  a 
complete  artistic  mastery  of  the  resources  of  poetic 
expression,  whether  his  theme  be  gay  or  grave,  or 
compounded  of  the  two.  His  extravagant  admira- 
tion of  Campbell  was  founded  on  Campbell's  admi- 
rable power  of  compression.  Halleck  thought  that 
Byron  was  a  mere  rhetorician  in  comparison  with  his 
favorite  poet.  Yet  it  is  evident  to  a  critical  reader 
that  a  good  deal  of  Campbell's  compactness  is  due  to 
a  studied  artifice  of  rhythm  and  rhyme,  while  Hal- 
leck seemingly  writes  in  verse  as  if  he  were  not 
trammelled  by  its  laws  ;  and  his  rhymes  naturally 
recur  without  suggesting  to  the  reader  that  his  con- 
densation of  thought  and  feeling  is  at  all  affected  by 
the  necessity  of  rhyming.  Prose  has  rarely  been 
written  with  more  careless  ease  and  more  melodious 
compactness  than  Halleck  has  shown  in  writing  verse. 
The  wonder  is,  that  with  this  conscious  command  of 
bending  verse  into  the  brief  expression  of  all  the 
moods  of  his  mind,  he  should  have  written  so  little. 
The  only  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  his  scepticism 
as  to  the  vital  reality  of  those  profound  states  of  con- 
sciousness which  inspire  poets  of  less  imaginative 
faculty  than  he  possessed  to  incessant  activity.  He 
was  among  poets  what  Thackeray  is  among  novelists. 
Being  the  well-paid  clerk  and  man  of  business  of  a 
millionnaire,  his  grand  talent  was  not  stung  into  exer- 
tion by  necessity.  Though  he  lived  to  the  age  of 
seventy-two,  he  allowed  year  after  year  to  pass  without 
any  exercise  of  his  genius.  "  What 's  the  use  ? "  — 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  53 

that  was  the  deadening  maxim  which  struck  his 
poetic  faculties  with  paralysis.  Yet  what  he  has 
written,  though  very  small  in  amount,  belongs  to  the 
most  precious  treasures  of  our  poetical  literature. 
What  he  might  have  written,  had  he  so  chosen,  would 
have  raised  him  to  a  rank  among  our  first  men  of 
letters,  which  he  does  not  at  present  hold. 

James  K.  Paulding  (1778-1860)  completes  this 
peculiar  group  of  New  York  authors.  He  was  con- 
nected with  Irving  in  the  production  of  the  "  Salma- 
gundi "  essays,  and  was  at  one  time  prominent  as  a 
satirist,  humorist,  and  novelist.  Most  of  his  writings 
are  now  forgotten,  though  they  evinced  a  somewhat 
strong  though  coarse  vein  of  humor,  which  was  not 
without  its  effect  at  the  period  when  its  local  and 
political  allusions  and  personalities  were  understood. 
A  scene  in  one  of  his  novels  indicates  the  kind  of 
comicality  in  which  he  excelled.  The  house  of  an 
old  reprobate  situated  on  the  baiik  of  a  river  is  car- 
ried away  by  a  freshet.  In  the  agony  of  his  fear  he 
strives  to  recall  some  prayer  which  he  learned  when 
a  child  ;  but  as  he  rushes  distractedly  up  and  down 
the  stairs  of  his  floating  mansion  he  can  only  re- 
member the  first  line  of  the  baby's  hymn,  "  Now  I 
lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  which  he  incessantly  repeats 
as  he  runs. 

While  these  New  York  essayists,  humorists,  and 
novelists  were  laughing  at  the  New  Englander  as  a 
Puritan,  and  satirizing  him  as  a  Yankee,  there  was  a 
peculiar  revival  of  spiritual  sentiment  in  New  Eng- 


54  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

land,  which  made  its  mark  in  general  as  well  as  in 
theological  literature.  In  the  very  home  of  Puritan- 
ism there  was  going  on  a  reaction  against  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  Calvinism  and  the  inexorable 
faith  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  This  r-eaction  began 
before  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  continued  after  it. 
Jonathan  Mayhew,  the  .pastor  of  the  West  Church 
of  Boston,  was  not  only  a  flaming  defender  of  the 
political  rights  of  the  colonies,  but  his  sermons  also 
teemed  with  theological  heresies.  He  rebelled  against 
King  Calvin  as  well  as  against  King  George.  Prob- 
ably Paine's  "  Age  of  Reason  "  had  afterward  some 
effect  in  inducing  prominent  Boston  clergymen,  re- 
puted orthodox,  to  silently  drop  from  their  preaching 
the  leading  dogmas  of  the  accredited  creed.  With 
such  accomplished  ministers  as  Freeman,  Buckmin- 
ster,  Thacher,  and  their  followers,  sermonizing  be- 
came more  and  more  a  form  of  moralizing,  and  the 
"  scheme  of  salvation  "  was  ignored  or  overlooked  in 
the  emphasis  laid  on  the  performance  of  practical 
duties.  What  would  now  be  called  rationalism,  either 
expressed  or  implied,  seemed  to  threaten  the  old  or- 
thodox faith  with  destruction  by  the  subtle  process 
of  sapping  and  undermining  without  directly  assail- 
ing it.  The  sturdy  Calvinists  were  at  first  puzzled 
what  to  do,  as  the  new  heresiarchs  did  not  so  much 
offend  by  what  they  preached  as  by  what  they  omitted 
to  preach ;  but  they  at  last  forced  those  who  were 
Unitarians  in  opinion  to  become  Unitarians  in  pro- 
fession, and  thus  what  was  intended  as  a  peaceful 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  55 

evolution  of  religious  faith  was  compelled  to  assume 
the  character  of  a  revolutionary  protest  against  the 
generally  received  dogmas  of  the  Christian  churches. 
The  two  men  prominent  in  this  insurrection  against 
ancestral  orthodoxy  were  William  Ellery  Channing 
and  Andrews  Norton.  *Channing  was  a  pious  hu- 
manitarian ;  Norton  was  an  accomplished  Biblical 
scholar.  Channing  assailed  Calvinism  because,  in 
his  opinion,  it  falsified  all  right  notions  of  God ; 
Norton,  because  it  falsified  the  true  interpretation  of 
the  Word  of  God.  Channing's  soul  was  filled  with 
the  idea  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  which,  he 
thought,  Calvinism  degraded  ;  Norton's  mind  re- 
sented what  he  considered  the  illogical  combination 
of  Scripture  texts  to  sustain  an  intolerable  theologi- 
cal theory.  Channing  delighted  to  portray  the  felici- 
ties of  a  heavenly  frame  of  mind ;  Norton  delighted 
to  exhibit  the  felicities  of  accurate  exegesis.  Both 
were  masters  of  style  ;  but  Channing  used  his  rheto- 
ric to  prove  that  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism  were 
abhorrent  to  the  God-given  moral  nature  of  man  ; 
Norton  employed  his  somewhat  dry  and  bleak  but 
singularly  lucid  powers  of  statement,  exposition,  and 
logic  to  show  that  his  opponents  were  deficient  in 
scholarship  and  sophistical  in  argumentation.  Chan- 
ning's literary  reputation,  which  overleaped  all  the 
boundaries  of  his  sect,  was  primarily  due  to  his  essay 
on  Milton  ;  but  Norton  could  not  endure  the  theologi- 
cal system  on  which  "  Paradise  Lost "  was  based, 
and  therefore  laughed  at  the  poem.  Norton  had 


56  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

little  of  that  imaginative  sympathy  with  the  mass  of 
mankind  for  which  Channing  was  pre-eminently  dis- 
tinguished. Anybody  who  has  mingled  much  with 
Unitarian  divines  must  have  heard  their  esoteric 
pleasantry  as  to  what  these  two  redoubtable  cham- 
pions of  the  Unitarian  faith  would  say  when  they 
were  transferred  from  earth  to  heaven.  Channing, 
as  he  looks  upon  the  bright  rows  of  the  celestial 
society,  rapturously  declares,  "  This  gives  me  a  new 
idea  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature ;  "  Norton,  with 
a  certain  patrician  exclusiveness  born  of  scholarly 
tastes,  folds  his  hands,  and  quietly  says  to  Saint  Peter 
or  Saint  Paul,  "  Rather  a  miscellaneous  assemblage." 
But  on  earth  they  worked  together,  each  after  his 
gifts,  to  draw  out  all  the  resources  of  sentiment, 
scholarship,  and  reasoning  possessed  by  such  able 
opponents  as  they  found  in  Stuart,  Woods,  and  Park. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Calvinism,  in  its  modified 
Hopkinsian  form,  gained  increased  power  by  the 
wholesome  shaking  which  Unitarianism  gave  it ;  for 
this  shaking  kindled  the  zeal,  sharpened  the  intel- 
lects, stimulated  the  mental  activity  of  every  professor 
of  the  evangelical  faith.  Neither  Channing  nor  Nor- 
ton, in  assailing  the  statements  in  which  the  Calvin- 
istic  creed  was  mechanically  expressed,  exhibited  an 
interior  view  of  the  creed  as  it  vitally  existed  in  the 
souls  of  Calvinists.  Channing,  however,  was  still  the 
legitimate  spiritual  successor  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
in  affirming,  with  new  emphasis,  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  Christianity,  that  God  is  in  direct  communica- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  57 

tion  with  the  souls  of  His  creatures.  The  difference 
is  that  Edwards  holds  the  doors  of  communication  so 
nearly  closed  that  only  the  elect  can  pass  in ;  Chan- 
ning  throws  them  wide  open,  and  invites  everybody 
to  be  illumined  in  thought  and  vitalized  in  will  by 
the  ever-fresh  outpourings  of  celestial  light  and 
warmth.  But  Channing  wrote  on  human  nature  as 
though  the  world  was  tenanted  by  actual  or  possible 
Channings,  who  possessed  his  exceptional  delicacy 
of  spiritual  perception  and  his  exceptional  exemption 
from  the  temptations  of  practical  life.  He  was,  as 
far  as  a  constant  contemplation  of  the  Divine  perfec- 
tions was  concerned,  a  meditative  saint ;  and  had  he 
belonged  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  he  probably 
would,  on  the  ground  of  his  spiritual  gifts,  have  been 
eventually  canonized.  Still,  the  seductive  subjectivity 
of  his  holy  outlook  on  nature  and  human  life  tended 
to  make  the  individual  consciousness  of  what  was 
just  and  good  the  measure  of  Divine  justice  and  good- 
ness ;  and  in  some  mediocre  minds,  which  his  reli- 
gious genius  magnetized,  this  tendency  brought  forth 
distressing  specimens  of  spiritual  sentimentality  and 
pious  pertness.  The  most  curious  result,  however, 
of  Channing's  teachings  was  the  swift  way  in  which 
his  disciples  overleaped  the  limitations  set  by  their 
master.  In  the  course  of  a  single  generation  some  of 
the  most  vigorous  minds  among  the  Unitarians,  prac- 
tising the  freedom  of  thought  which  he  inculcated  as 
a  duty,  indulged  in  theological  audacities  of  which  he 
never  dreamed.  He  was  the  intellectual  father  of 


58  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Theodore  Parker,  and  the  intellectual  grandfather  of 
Octavius  B.  Frothingham.  Parker  and  Frothingham, 
both  humanitarians,  but  students  also  of  the  advanced 
school  of  critical  theologians,  soon  made  Channing's 
heresies  tame  when  compared  with  the  heresies  they 
promulgated.  The  Free  Religionists  are  the  legiti- 
mate progeny  of  Channing. 

But,  in  the  interim,  the  theologian  and  preacher 
who  came  nearest  to  Channing  in  the  geniality  and 
largeness  of  his  nature,  and  the  persuasiveness  with 
which  he  enforced  what  may  be  called  the  conserva- 
tive tenets  of  Unitarianism,  was  Orville  Dewey,  a  man 
whose  mind  was  fertile,  whose  religious  experience 
was  deep,  and  who  brought  from  the  Calvinism  in 
which  he  had  been  trained  an  interior  knowledge  of 
the  system  which  he  early  rejected.  He  had  a  pro- 
found sense  not  only  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature, 
but  of  the  dignity  of  human  life.  In  idealizing  human 
life  he  must  still  be  considered  as  giving  some  fresh 
and  new  interpretations  of  it,  and  his  discourses  form, 
like  Channing's,  an  addition  to  American  literature, 
as  well  as  a  contribution  to  the  theology  of  Unitarian- 
ism.  He  defended  men  from  the  assaults  of  Calvin- 
ists,  as  Channing  had  defended  Man.  Carlyle  speaks 
somewhere  of  "  this  dog-hole  of  a  world ; "  Dewey 
considered  it,  with  all  its  errors  and  horrors,  as  a 
good  world  on  the  whole,  and  as  worthy  of  the  Divine 
beneficence. 

The  work  which  may  be  said  to  have  bridged  over 
the  space  which  separated  Channing  from  Theodore 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  59 

Parker  was  "  Academical  Lectures  on  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  and  Antiquities,"  by  Dr.  John  G.  Palfrey, 
Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in  the  University  at 
Cambridge,  published  in  1838,  but  which  had  doubtless 
influenced  the  students  who  had  listened  to  them 
many  years  before  their  publication.  This  book  is 
noticeable  for  the  scholarly  method  by  which  most  of 
the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament  are  ex- 
plained on  natural  principles,  and  the  calm,  almost 
prim  and  polite,  exclusion  of  miracle  from  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  Accepting  miracle  when  he  considered  it 
necessary,  Dr.  Palfrey  broke  the  spell  and  charm,  at 
least  among  Unitarian  students  of  theology,  which 
separated  the  Hebrew  Bible  from  other  great  works 
which  expressed  the  religious  mind  of  the  human  race  ; 
and  his  "  Academical  Lectures  "  remain  as  a  palpable 
landmark  in  the  progress  of  American  rationalism. 

But  probably  the  greatest  literary  result  of  the 
Unitarian  revolt  was  the  appearance  in  our  literature 
of  such  a  phenomenon  as  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  He 
came  from  a  race  of  clergymen ;  doubtless  much  of 
his  elevation  of  character  and  austere  sense  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  moral  sentiment  is  his  by  inheritance ; 
but  after  'entering  the  ministry  he  soon  found  that 
even  Unitarianism  was  a  limitation  of  his  intellectual 
independence  to  which  he  could  not  submit ;  and,  in 
the  homely  New  England  phrase,  "  he  set  up  on  his 
own  account,"  responsible  for  nobody,  and  not  respon- 
sible to  anybody.  His  radicalism  penetrated  to  the 
very  root  of  dissent,  for  it  was  founded  on  the  idea 


60  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

that  in  all  organizations,  social,  political,  and  religious, 
there  must  be  an  element  which  checks  the  free  exer- 
cise of  individual  thought ;  and  the  free  exercise 
of  his  individual  thinking  he  determined  should  be 
controlled  by  nothing  instituted  and  authoritative 
on  the  planet.  Descartes  himself  did  not  begin  his 
philosophizing  with  a  more  complete  self-emancipation 
from  all  the  opinions  generally  accepted  by  mankind. 
But  Descartes  was  a  reasoner ;  Emerson  is  a  seer  and 
a  poet ;  and  he  was  the  last  man  to  attempt  to  over- 
throw accredited  systems  in  order  to  substitute  for 
them  a  dogmatic  system  of  his  own.  In  his  view  of 
the  duty  of  "  man  thinking,"  this  course  would  have 
been  to  violate  his  fundamental  principle,  which  was 
that  nobody  "  could  lay  copyright  on  the  world ; " 
that  no  theory  could  include  Nature ;  that  the  greatest 
thinker  and  discoverer  could  only  add  a  few  items  of 
information  to  what  the  human  mind  had  previously 
won  from  "  the*  vast  and  formless  infinite ;  "  and  that 
the  true  work  of  a  scholar  was  not  to  inclose  the  field 
of  matter  and  mind  by  a  system  which  encircled  it, 
but  to  extend  our  knowledge  in  straight  lines,  leading 
from  the  vanishing  points  of  positive  knowledge  into 
the  illimitable  unknown  spaces  beyond.  Emerson's 
peculiar  sphere  was  psychology.  By  a  certain  felicity 
of  his  nature  he  was  a  non-combatant ;  indifferent  to 
logic,  he  suppressed  all  the  processes  of  his  thinking, 
and  announced  its  results  in  affirmations  ;  and  none 
of  the  asperities  which  commonly  afflict  the  apostles 
of  dissent  ever  ruffled  the  serene  spirit  of  this  univer- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  61 

sal  dissenter.  He  could  never  be  seduced  into  con- 
troversy. He  was  assailed  both  as  an  atheist  and  as 
a  pantheist ;  as  a  writer  so  obscure  that  nobody  could 
understand  what  he  meant,  and  also  as  a  mere  verbal 
trickster,  whose  only  talent  consisted  in  vivifying 
commonplaces,  or  in  converting,  by  inversion,  stale 
truisms  into  brilliant  paradoxes ;  and  all  these  vary- 
ing charges  had  only  the  effect  of  lighting  up  his  face 
with  that  queer,  quizzical,  inscrutable  smile,  that 
amused  surprise  at  the  misconceptions  of  the  people 
who  attacked  him,  which  is  noticeable  in  all  portraits 
and  photographs  of  his  somewhat  enigmatical  coun- 
tenance. His  method  was  very  simple  and  very  hard. 
It  consisted  in  growing  up  to  a  level  with  the  spiritual 
objects  he  perceived,  and  his  elevation  of  thought  was 
thus  the  sign  and  accompaniment  of  a  corresponding 
elevation  of  character.  In  his  case,  as  in  the  case  of 
Channing,  there  was  an  unconscious  return  to  Jona- 
than Edwards,  and  to  all  the  great  divines  whose 
"  souls  had  sight "  of  eternal  verities.  What  the  or- 
thodox saints  called  the  Holy  Ghost,  he,  without 
endowing  it  with  personality,  called  the  Over  Soul. 
He  believed  with  them  that  in  God  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being ;  that  only  by  communicating  with 
this  Being  can  we  have  any  vital  individuality ;  and 
that  the  record  of  a  communication  with  Him  or  It 
was  the  most  valuable  of  all  contributions  to  literature, 
whether  theological  or  human.  The  noblest  passages 
in  his  writings  are  those  in  which  he  celebrates  this 
august  and  gracious  communion  of  the  Spirit  of  God 


62  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

with  the  soul  of  man ;  and  they  are  the  most  serious, 
solemn,  and  uplifting  passages  which  can  perhaps  be 
found  in  our  literature.  Here  was  a  man  who  had 
earned  the  right  to  utter  these  noble  truths  by  patient 
meditation  and  clear  insight.  Carlyle  exclaimed,  in 
a  preface  to  an  English  edition  of  one  of  Emerson's 
later  volumes :  "  Here  comes  our  brave  Emerson,  with 
news  from  the  empyrean  ! "  That  phrase  exactly  hits 
Emerson  as  a  transcendental  thinker.  His  insights 
were,  in  some  sense,  revelations ;  he  could  "  gossip  on 
the  eternal  politics  ; "  and  just  at  the  time  when  sci- 
ence, relieved  from  the  pressure  of  theology,  an- 
nounced materialistic  hypotheses  with  more  than  the 
confidence  with  which  the  bigots  of  theological  creeds 
had  heretofore  announced  their  dogmas,  this  serene 
American  thinker  had  won  his  way  into  all  the  centres 
of  European  intelligence,  and  delivered  his  quiet  pro- 
test against  every  hypothesis  which  put  in  peril  the 
spiritual  interests  of  humanity.  It  is  curious  to  wit- 
ness the  process  by  which  this  heresiarch  has  ended 
in  giving  his  evidence,  or  rather  his  experience,  that 
God  is  not  the  Unknowable  of  Herbert  Spencer,  but 
that,  however  infinitely  distant  He  may  be  from  the 
human  understanding,  He  is  still  intimately  near  to 
the  human  soul.  And  Emerson  knows  by  experience 
what  the  word  soul  really  means ! 

"  Were  she  a  body,  how  could  she  remain 

Within  the  body  which  is  less  than  she  ? 
Or  how  could  she  the  world's  great  shape  contain, 
And  in  our  narrow  breasts  contained  be  ? 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  63 

"  All  bodies  are  confined  within  some  place, 
But  she  all  place  within  herself  confines  ; 
All  bodies  have  their  measure  and  their  space, 
But  who  can  draw  the  soul's  dimensive  lines  ?  " 

In  an  unpublished  speech  at  a  celebration  of  Shak- 
speare's  birthday,  he  spoke  of  Shakspeare  as  proving 
to  us  that  "  the  soul  of  man  is  deeper,  wider,  higher 
than  the  spaces  of  astronomy ; "  and  in  another  con- 
nection he  says  that  "  a  man  of  thought  must  feel 
that  thought  is  the  parent  of  the  universe,"  that  "  the 
world  is  saturated  with  deity  and  with  law." 

It  is  this  depth  of  spiritual  experience  and  subtilty 
of  spiritual  insight  which  distinguish  Emerson  from 
all  other  American  authors,  and  make  him  an  ele- 
mentary power  as  well  as  an  elementary  thinker. 
The  singular  attractiveness,  however,  of  his  writings 
comes  from  his  intense  perception  of  Beauty,  both  in 
its  abstract  quality  as  the  "  awful  loveliness  "  which 
such  poets  as  Shelley  celebrated,  and  in  the  more  con- 
crete expression  by  which  it  fascinates  ordinary  minds. 
His  imaginative  faculty,  both  in  the  conception  and 
creation  of  beauty,  is  uncorrupted  by  any  morbid  sen- 
timent. His  vision  reaches  to  the  very  sources  of 
beauty,  —  the  beauty  that  cheers.  The  great  majority 
even  of  eminent  poets  are  "  saddest  when  they  sing." 
They  contrast  life  with  the  beautiful  possibilities  of 
life  which  their  imaginations  suggest,  and  though 
their  discontent  with  the  actual  may  inspire  by  the 
energy  of  its  utterance,  it  tends  also  to  depress  by 
emphasizing  the  impossibility  of  realizing  the  ideals 


64  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

it  depicts.  But  the  perception  of  beauty  in  nature  or 
in  human  nature,  whether  it  be  the  beauty  of  a  flower 
or  of  a  soul,  makes  Emerson  joyous  and  glad ;  he 
exults  in  celebrating  it,  and  he  communicates  to  his 
readers  his  own  ecstatic  mood.  He  has  been  a  dili- 
gent student  of  many  literatures  and  many  religions  ; 
but  all  his  quotations  from  them  show  that  he  rejects 
everything  in  his  manifold  readings  which  does  not 
tend  to  cheer,  invigorate,  and  elevate,  which  is  not 
nutritious  food  for  the  healthy  human  soul.  If  he  is 
morbid  in  anything,  it  is  in  his  comical  hatred  of  all 
forms  of  physical,  mental,  and  moral  disease.  He 
agrees  with  Dr.  Johnson  in  declaring  that  "every 
man  is  a  rascal  as  soon  as  he  is  sick."  "  I  once 
asked,"  he  says,  "  a  clergyman  in  a  retired  town  who 
were  his  companions  —  what  men  of  ability  he  saw. 
He  replied  that  he  spent  his  time  with  the  sick  and 
the  dying.  I  said  he  seemed  to  me  to  need  quite 
other  company,  and  all  the  more  that  he  had  this ; 
for  if  people  were  sick  and  dying  to  any  purpose,  we 
should  leave  all  and  go  to  them,  but,  as  far  as  I  had 
observed,  they  were  as  frivolous  as  the  rest,  and  some- 
times much  more  frivolous."  Indeed,  Emerson,  glory- 
ing in  his  own  grand  physical  and  moral  health,  and 
fundamentally  brave,  is  impatient  of  all  the  weak- 
nesses of  humanity,  especially  those  of  men  of  genius. 
He  never  could  be  made  to  recognize  the  genius  of 
Shelley,  except  in  a  few  poems,  because  he  was  dis- 
gusted with  the  wail  that  persistently  runs  through 
Shelley's  wonderfully  imaginative  poetry.  In  his 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  65 

taste,  as  in  his  own  practice  as  a  writer,  he  is  a  stout 
believer  in  the  desirableness  and  efficacy  of  mental 
tonics,  and  a  severe  critic  of  the  literature  of  discon- 
tent and  desperation.  He  looks  curiously  on  while  a 
poet  rages  against  destiny  and  his  own  miseries,  and 
puts  the  ironical  query,  "  Why  so  hot,  my  little  man?" 
His  ideal  of  manhood  was  originally  derived  from  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  somewhat  haughty  individ- 
uality, and  it  has  been  fed  by  his  study  of  the  poetic 
and  historic  records  of  persons  who  have  dared  to 
do  heroic  acts  and  dared  to  utter  heroic  thoughts. 
Beauty  is  never  absent  from  his  celebration  of  these, 
but  it  is  a  beauty  that  never  enfeebles,  but  always 
braces  and  cheers. 

Take  the  six  or  eight  volumes  in  which  Emerson's 
genius  and  character  are  embodied,  —  that  is,  in 
which  he  has  converted  truth  into  life,  and  life  into 
more  truth,  —  and  you  are  dazzled  on  every  page  by 
his  superabundance  of  compactly  expressed  reflection, 
and  his  marvellous  command  of  all  the  resources  of 
imaginative  illustration.  Every  paragraph  is  liter- 
ally "  rammed  with  life."  A  fortnight's  meditation 
is  sometimes  condensed  in  a  sentence  of  a  couple  of 
lines.  Almost  every  word  bears  the  mark  of  delib- 
erate thought  in  its  selection.  The  most  evanescent 
and  elusive  spiritual  phenomena,  which  occasionally 
flit  before  the  steady  gaze  of  the  inner  eye  of  the 
mind,  are  fixed  in  expressions  which  have  the  solid- 
ity of  marble.  The  collection  of  these  separate  in- 
sights into  nature  and  human  life  he  ironically  calls 

5 


66  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

an  essay ;  and  much  criticism  lias  been  wasted  in 
showing  that  the  aphoristic  and  axiomatic  sentences 
are  often  connected  by  mere  juxtaposition  on  the 
page,  and  not  by  logical  relation  with  each  other, 
and  that  at  the  end  we  have  no  perception  of  a  series 
of  thoughts  leading  up  to  a  clear  idea  of  the  general 
theme.  This  criticism  is  just ;  but  in  reading  Emer- 
son we  have  not  to  do  with  such  economists  of  thought 
as  Addison,  Johnson,  and  Goldsmith,  —  with  the 
writers  of  the  "  Spectator,"  the  "  Rambler,"  and  the 
"  Citizen  of  the  World."  Emerson's  so-called  essay 
sparkles  with  sentences  which  might  be  made  the 
texts  for  numerous  ordinary  essays ;  and  his  general 
title,  it  may  be  added,  is  apt  to  be  misleading.  He 
is  fragmentary  in  composition  because  he  is  a  fanatic 
for  compactness ;  and  every  paragraph,  sometimes 
every  sentence,  is  a  record  of  an  insight.  Hence 
comes  the  impression  that  his  sentences  are  huddled 
together  rather  than  artistically  disposed.  Still,  with 
all  this  lack  of  logical  order,  he  has  the  immense 
advantage  of  suggesting  something  new  to  the  dili- 
gent reader  after  he  has  read  him  for  the  fiftieth 
time. 

It  is  also  to  be  said  of  Emerson  that  he  is  one  of 
the  wittiest  and  most  practical  as  well  as  one  of  the 
profoundest  of  American  writers,  that  his  wit,  exer- 
cised on  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  is  the  very  em- 
bodiment of  brilliant  good  sense,  that  he  sometimes 
rivals  Franklin  in  humorous  insight,  and  that  both 
his  wit  and  humor  obey  that  law  of  beauty  which 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  67 

governs  every  other  exercise  of  his  peculiar  mind. 
He  has  many  defects  and  eccentricities  exasperating 
to  the  critic  who  demands  symmetry  in  the  mental 
constitution  of  the  author  whose  peculiar  merits  he  is 
eager  to  acknowledge.  He  occasionally  indulges,  too, 
in  some  strange  freaks  of  intellectual  and  moral  ca- 
price which  his  own  mature  judgment  should  con- 
demn,—the  same  pen  by  which  they  were  recorded 
being  used  to  blot  them  out  of  existence.  They  are 
audacities,  but  how  unlike  his  grand  audacities  !  In 
short,  they  are  somewhat  small  audacities,  unworthy 
of  him  and  of  the  subjects  with  which  he  deals  — 
escapades  of  epigram  on  topics  which  should  have 
exacted  the  austerest  exercise  of  his  exceptional 
faculty  of  spiritual  insight.  Nothing,  however,  which 
can  be  said  against  him  touches  his  essential  quality 
of  manliness,  or  lowers  him  from  that  rank  of  thinkers 
in  whom  the  seer  and  the  poet  combine  to  give  the 
deepest  results  of  meditation  in  the  most  exquisite 
forms  of  vital  beauty.  And  then  how  superb  and 
animating  is  his  lofty  intellectual  courage  !  "  The 
soul,"  he  says,  "  is  in  her  native  realm,  and  it  is 
wider  than  space,  older  tnan  time,  wide  as  hope,  rich 
as  love.  Pusillanimity  and  fear  she  refuses  with  a 
beautiful  scorn.  They  are  not  for  her  who  putteth 
on  her  coronation  robes,  and  goes  through  universal 
love  to  universal  power." 

Emerson,  though  in  some  respects  connected  with 
the  Unitarian  movement  as  having  been  a  minister  of 
the  denomination,  soon  cut  himself  free  from  it,  and 


68  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

was  as  independent  of  that  form  of  Christian  faith  as 
he  was  of  other  forms.  He  drew  from  all  quarters, 
and  whatever  fed  his  religious  sense  of  mystery,  of 
might,  of  beauty,  and  of  Deity  was  ever  welcome  to 
his  soul.  As  he  was  outside  of  all  religious  organi- 
zations, and  never  condescended  to  enter  into  any 
argument  with  his  opponents,  he  was  soon  allowed 
silently  to  drop  out  of  theological  controversy.  But 
a  fiercer  and  more  combative  spirit  now  appeared  to 
trouble  the  Unitarian  clergyman,  —  a  man  who  con- 
sidered himself  a  Unitarian  minister,  who  had  for 
Calvinism  a  stronger  repulsion  than  Channing  or 
Norton  ever  felt,  and  who  attempted  to  drag  on  his 
denomination  to  conclusions  at  which  most  of  its 
members  stood  aghast. 

This  man  was  Theodore  Parker,  a  born  controver- 
sialist, who  had  the  challenging  chip  always  on  his 
shoulder,  which  he  invited  both  his  Unitarian  and  his 
Orthodox  brethren  to  knock  off.  There  never  was  a 
man  who  more  gloried  in  a  fight.  If  any  theologians 
desired  to  get  into  a  controversy  with  him  as  to  the 
validity  of  their  opposing  beliefs,  he  was  eager  to  give 
them  as  much  of  it  as  they  desired.  The  persecution 
he  most  keenly  felt  was  the  persecution  of  inatten- 
tion and  silence.  He  was  the  Luther  of  radical  Uni- 
tarianism.  When  the  Unitarian  societies  refused 
fellowship  with  his  society,  he  organized  a  church  of 
his  own,  and  made  it  one  of  the  most  powerful  in 
New  England.  There  was  nothing  but  disease  which 
could  check,  and  nothing  but  death  which  could  close 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  69 

his  controversial  activity.  He  became  the  champion 
of  radical  as  against  conservative  Unitarianism,  and 
the  persistent  adversary  even  of  the  most  moderate 
Calvinism.  Besides  his  work  in  these  fields  of  intel- 
lectual effort,  he  threw  himself  literally  head-foremost 
—  and  his  head  was  large  and  well-stored  —  into 
every  unpopular  reform  which  he  could  aid  by  his 
will,  his  reason,  his  learning,  and  his  moral  power. 
He  was  among  the  leaders  in  the  attempt  to  apply 
the  rigid  maxims  of  Christianity  to  practical  life ; 
and  many  Orthodox  clergymen,  who  combined  with 
him  in  his  assaults  on  intemperance,  slavery,  and 
other  hideous  evils  of  our  civilization,  almost  con- 
doned his  theological  heresies  in  their  admiration  of 
his  fearlessness  in  practical  reforms.  He  was  an 
enormous  reader  and  diligent  student,  as  well  as  a 
resolute  man  of  affairs.  He  also  had  great  depth  and 
fervency  of  piety.  His  favorite  hymn  was  "  Nearer, 
my  God,  to  Thee."  While  assailing  what  the  great 
body  of  New  England  people  believed  to  be  the  foun- 
dations of  religion,  he  startled  vigorous  orthodox 
reasoners  by  his  confident  teaching  that  every  indi- 
vidual soul  had  a  consciousness  of  its  immortality 
independent  of  revelation,  and  superior  to  the  results 
of  all  the  modern  physical  researches  which  seemed 
to  place  it  in  doubt.  Indeed,  his  own  incessant  ac- 
tivity was  an  argument  for  the  soul's  immortality. 
In  spite  of  all  the  outside  calls  on  his  energies,  he 
found  time  to  attend  strictly  to  his  ministerial  duties, 
to  make  himself  one  of  the  most  accomplished  theo- 


70  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

logical  and  general  scholars  in  New  England,  and  to 
write  and  translate  books  which  required  deep  study 
and  patient  thought.  The  physical  frame,  stout  as  it 
was,  at  last  broke  down  —  his  mind  still  busy  in 
meditating  new  works  which  were  never  to  be  written. 
Probably  no  other  clergyman  of  his  time,  not  even 
Mr.  Beecher,  drew  his  society  so  closely  to  himself, 
and  became  the  object  of  so  much  warm  personal 
attachment  and  passionate  devotion.  Grim  as  he 
appeared  when,  arrayed  in  his  theological  armor,  he 
went  forth  to  battle,  he  was  in  private  intercourse 
the  gentlest,  most  genial,  and  most  affectionate  of 
men.  And  it  is  to  be  added  that  few  Orthodox  clergy- 
men had  a  more  intense  religious  faith  in  the  saving 
power  of  their  doctrines  than  Theodore  Parker  had 
in  the  regenerating  efficacy  of  his  rationalistic  con- 
victions. When  Luther  was  dying,  Dr.  Jonas  said  to 
him,  "  Reverend  father,  do  you  die  in  implicit  reli- 
ance on  the  faith  you  have  taught  ? "  And  from 
those  lips,  just  closing  in  death,  came  the  steady  an- 
swering "  Yes."  Theodore  Parker's  answer  to  such 
a  question,  put  to  him  on  his  death-bed,  would  have 
been  the  same. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  71 


II. 


TOWARD  the  conclusion  of  the  first  portion  of  this 
paper,  the  necessity  was  shown  of  noticing  the  New 
England  revolt  against  Calvinism,  in  order  to  account 
for  certain  peculiarities  which  characterize  some  prom- 
inent poets  and  men  of  letters  who  testify  to  its  influ- 
ence. The  theological  protest  against  Unitarianism 
was  made  by  some  of  the  most  powerful  minds  and 
learned  scholars  in  the  country,  —  by  Stuart,  Park, 
Edwards,  Barnes,  Robinson,  Lyman  Beecher,  the 
whole  family  of  the  Alexanders,  of  which  Addison 
Alexander  was  the  greatest,  not  to  mention  fifty  others. 
The  thought  of  these  men  still  controls  the  theological 
opinion  of  the  country,  and  their  works  are  much 
more  extensively  circulated,  and  exert  a  greater  prac- 
tical influence,  than  the  writings  of  such  men  as 
Channing,  Norton,  Dewey,  Emerson,  and  Parker ;  but 
still  they  have  not  affected  in  a  like  degree  the  litera- 
ture which  springs  from  the  heart,  the  imagination, 
and  the  spiritual  sentiment.  Unitarianism,  through 
its  lofty  views  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  natur- 
ally allied  itself  with  the  sentiment  of  philanthropy. 
While  it  has  not  been  more  practically  conspicuous 
than  other  denominations  for  the  love  of  man,  as  ex- 
pressed in  works  to  ameliorate  his  condition,  it  has 
succeeded  better  in  domesticating  philanthropy  in 
literature,  especially  in  poetry.  Witness  Bryant, 


72  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Longfellow,    Whittier,    Holmes,    Lowell,    and    Mrs. 
Howe. 

Longfellow  is  probably  the  most  popular  poet  of 
the  country.  The  breadth  of  his  sympathy,  the 
variety  of  his  acquisitions,  the  plasticity  of  his  im- 
agination, the  sonorousness  and  weight  of  his  verse. 
the  vividness  of  his  imagery,  the  equality,  the  beauty, 
the  beneficence  of  his  disposition,  make  him  univer- 
sally attractive  and  universally  intelligible.  Each  of 
his  minor  poems  is  pervaded  by  one  thought,  and  has 
that  artistic  unity  which  comes  from  the  economic 
use  of  rich  material.  The  "  Hymn  to  the  Night,"  "  A 
Psalm  of  Life,"  "Footsteps  of  Angels,"  "The  Skeleton 
in  Armor,"  "The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,"  "The 
Village  Blacksmith,"  "  Excelsior,"  "  The  Arsenal  at 
Springfield,"  "  Sea- Weed,"  "  Resignation,"  and  other 
of  his  minor  poems  have  found  a  lodgement  in  the 
memory  of  everybody,  and  it  will  be  found  that  their 
charm  consists  in  their  unity  as  well  as  in  their  beauty, 
that  they  are  as  much  poems,  complete  in  themselves, 
as  "  Evangeline"  or  "  Hiawatha."  In  "  Maidenhood  " 
and  "  Endymion,"  especially  in  the  latter,  the  poet  is 
revealed  in  all  the  exquisiteness,  the  delicacy,  the  re- 
finement, of  his  imaginative  faculty ;  but  they  are  less 
popular  than  the  poems  previously  mentioned,  because 
they  embody  more  subtile  moods  of  the  poetic  mind. 
Longfellow's  power  of  picturing  to  the  eye  and  the 
soul  a  scene,  a  place,  an  event,  a  person,  is  almost  un- 
rivalled. His  command  of  many  metres,  each  adapted 
to  his  special  subject,  shows  also  how  artistically  he 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  73 

uses  sound  to  re-enforce  vision,  and  satisfy  the  ear 
while  pleasing  the  eye. 

"  When  descends  on  the  Atlantic 

The  gigantic 

Storm-wind  of  the  equinox, 
Landward  in  his  wrath  he  scourges 

The  toiling  surges, 
Laden  with  sea-weed  from  the  rocks." 

The  ear  least  skilled  to  detect  the  harmonies  of  verse 
feels  the  obvious  effect  of  lines  like  these.  In  his 
long  poems,  such  as  "  Evangeline,"  "  The  Golden 
Legend,"  "Hiawatha,"  "The  Courtship  of  Miles  Stan- 
dish,"  "The  New  England  Tragedies,"  Longfellow 
never  repeats  himself.  He  occupies  a  new  domain  of 
poetry  with  each  successive  poem,  and  always  gives 
the  public  the  delightful  shock  of  a  new  surprise.  In 
his  prose  works,  "  Outre-Mer,"  "  Hyperion,"  and 
"  Kavanagh,"  he  is  the  same  man  as  in  his  verse,  — 
ever  sweet,  tender,  thoughtful,  weighty,  vigorous,  im- 
aginative, and  humane.  His  great  translation  of 
Dante  is  not  the  least  of  his  claims  to  the  gratitude 
of  his  countrymen,  for  it  is  a  new  illustration  of  his 
life-long  devotion  —  rare  in  an  American  —  to  the 
service  of  literature,  considered  as  one  of  the  highest 
exercises  of  patriotism. 

Longfellow  has  enjoyed  every  advantage  that  cul- 
ture can  give,  and  his  knowledge  of  many  nations  and 
many  languages  undoubtedly  has  given  breadth  to  his 
mind,  and  opened  to  him  ever  new  sources  of  poetic 
interest ;  but  John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  who  contests 


74  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

with  him  the  palm  of  popularity  as  a  poet,  was  one 
of  those  God-made  men  who  are  in  a  sense  self-made 
poets.  A  musing  farmer's  boy,  working  in  the  fields, 
and  ignorant  of  books,  he  early  felt  the  poetic  instinct 
moving  in  his  soul,  but  thought  his  surroundings  were 
essentially  prosaic,  and  could  never  be  sung.  At  last 
one  afternoon,  while  he  was  gathering  in  the  hay,  a 
pedler  dropped  a  copy  of  Burns  into  his  hands.  In- 
stantly his  eyes  were  unsealed.  There  in  the  neigh- 
boring field  was  "'Highland  Mary  ;  "  "  The  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night "  occurred  in  his  own  father's  pious 
New  England  home ;  and  the  birds  which  carolled  over 
his  head,  the  flowers  which  grew  under  his  feet,  were 
as  poetic  as  those  to  which  the  Scottish  ploughman  had 
given  perennial  interest.  Burns  taught  him  to  detect 
the  beautiful  in  the  common;  but  Burns  could  not 
^orrupt  the  singularly  pure  soul  of  the  lad  by  his  en- 
ticing suggestions  of  idealized  physical  enjoyment  and 
unregulated  passion.  The  boy  grew  into  a  man,  cul- 
tivating assiduously  his  gift  of  song,  though  shy  of 
showing  it.  The  antislavery  storm  swept  over  the 
land,  awakening  consciences  as  well  as  stimulating 
intellects.  Whittier  had  always  lived  in  a  region  of 
moral  ideas,  and  this  antislavery  inspiration  inflamed 
his  moral  ideas  into  moral  passion  and  moral  wrath. 
If  Garrison  may  be  considered  the  prophet  of  anti- 
slavery,  and  Phillips  its  orator,  and  Mrs.  Stowe  its 
novelist,  and  Sumner  its  statesman,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Whittier  was  its  poet.  Quaker  as  he  was, 
his  martial  lyrics  had  something  of  the  energy  of  a 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  75 

primitive  bard  urging  on  hosts  to  battle.  Every  word 
was  a  blow,  as  uttered  by  this  newly  enrolled  soldier 
of  the  Lord.  "  The  silent,  shy,  peace-loving  man " 
became  a  "  fiery  partisan,"  and  held  his  intrepid  way 

"  against  the  public  frown, 
The  ban  of  Church  and  State,  the  tierce  mob's  hounding  down." 

He  roused,  condensed,  and  elevated  the  public  senti- 
ment against  slavery.  The  poetry  was  as  genuine  as 
the  wrath  was  terrific,  and  many  a  political  time- 
server,  who  was  proof  against  Garrison's  hottest  de- 
nunciations and  Phillips's  most  stinging  invectives, 
quailed  before  Whittier's  smiting  rhymes.  Yet  he 
tells  us  he  was  essentially  a  poetic  dreamer,  unfit  "  to 
ride  the  winged  hippogriff  Reform." 

"  For  while  he  wrought  with  strenuous  will 

The  work  his  hands  had  found  to  do, 
He  heard  the  fitful  music  still 

Of  winds  that  out  of  dream-land  blew. 

"  The  common  air  was  thick  with  dreams  — 

He  told  them  to  the  toiling  crowd; 
Such  music  as  the  woods  and  streams 
Sang  in  his  ear  he  sang  aloud. 

"  In  still,  shut  bays,  on  windy  capes, 
He  heard  the  call  of  beckoning  shapes, 
And,  as  the  gray  old  shadows  prompted  him, 
To  homely  moulds  of  rhyme  he  shaped  their  legends  grim." 

In  these  lines  he  refers  to  two  kinds  of  poetry  in  which 
he  has  obtained  almost  equal  eminence,  — his  intensely 
imaginative  and  meditative  poems,  and  his  ringing, 


76  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

legendary  ballads,  the  material  of  the  latter  having 
been  gathered,  in  his  wanderings,  from  the  lips  of 
sailors,  farmers,  and  that  class  of  aged  women  who 
connect  each  event  they  relate  with  the  superstitions 
originally  ingrafted  upon  it.  It  is  needless  to  add 
that  during  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  and  the  political 
contests  accompanying  reconstruction,  the  voice  of 
Whittier  rang  through  the  land  to  cheer,  to  animate, 
to  uplift,  and  also  to  warn  and  denounce.  Whittier, 
though  creedless,  is  one  of  the  most  religious  of  our 
poets.  In  these  days  of  scepticism  as  to  the  possibil- 
ity of  the  communication  of  the  Divine  Mind  with  the 
human,  it  is  consolatory  to  read  his  poem  on  "  The 
Eternal  Goodness,"  especially  this  stanza  :  — 

"  I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift. 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  —  wit,  satirist,  humorist, 
novelist,  scholar,  scientist  —  is,  above  everything,  a 
poet,  for  the  qualities  of  the  poet  pervade  all  the 
operations  of  his  variously  gifted  mind.  His  sense 
of  the  ludicrous  is  not  keener  than  his  sense  of  the 
beautiful ;  his  wit  and  humor  are  but  the  sportive 
exercise  of  a  fancy  and  imagination  which  lie  has 
abundantly  exercised  on  serious  topics  ;  and  the  ex- 
tensive learning  and  acute  logic  of  the  man  of 
science  are  none  the  less  solid  in  substance  because 
in  expression  they  are  accompanied  by  a  throng  of 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  77 

images  and  illustrations  which  endow  erudition  with 
life,  and  give  a  charm  to  the  most  closely  linked  chain 
of  reasoning.  The  first  thing  which  strikes  a  reader 
of  Holmes  is  the  vigor  and  elasticity  of  his  nature. 
He  is  incapable  of  weakness.  He  is  fresh  and  manly 
even  when  he  securely  treads  the  scarcely  marked  line 
which  separates  sentiment  from  sentimentality.  This 
prevailing  vigor  proceeds  from  a  strength  of  individu- 
ality which  is  often  pushed  to  dogmatic  self-assertion. 
It  is  felt  as  much  in  his  airy,  fleering  mockeries  of 
folly  and  pretension,  as  in  his  almost  Juverialian  in- 
vectives against  baseness  and  fraud  —  in  the  pleasant 
way  in  which  he  stretches  a  coxcomb  on  the  rack  of 
wit,  as  in  the  energy  with  which  he  grapples  an  oppo- 
nent in  the  tussle  of  argumentation.  He  never  seems 
to  imagine  that  he  can  be  inferior  to  the  thinker  whose 
position  he  assails,  any  more  than  to  the  noodle  whose 
nonsense  he  jeers  at.  In  argument  he  is  sometimes 
the  victor,  in  virtue  of  scornfully  excluding  what 
another  reasoner  would  include,  and  thus  seems  to 
make  his  own  intellect  the  measure  of  the  whole  sub- 
ject in  discussion.  When  in  his  Autocrat,  or  his 
Professor,  or  his  Poet,  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  he 
touches  theological  themes,  he  is  peculiarly  exasperat- 
ing to  theological  opponents,  not  only  for  the  effect- 
iveness of  his  direct  hits,  but  for  the  easy  way  in 
which  he  gayly  overlooks  considerations  which  their 
whole  culture  has  induced  them  to  deem  of  vital 
moment.  The  truth  is  that  Holmes's  dogmatism 
comes  rather  from  the  vividness  and  rapidity  of  his 


78  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

perceptions  than  from  the  arrogance  of  his  personality. 
"  This,"  he  seems  to  say,  "  is  not  my  opinion ;  it  is  a 
demonstrated  law  which  you  wilfully  ignore  while 
pretending  to  be  scholars."  The  indomitable  courage 
of  the  man  carries  him  through  all  the  exciting  con- 
troversies he  scornfully  invites.  Holmes,  for  the  last 
forty  years,  has  been  expressing  this  inexhaustible 
vitality  of  nature  in  various  ways,  and  to-day  he  ap- 
pears as  vigorous  as  he  was  in  his  prime,  more  vigor- 
ous than  he  was  in  his  youth.  His  early  poems 
sparkled  with  thought  and  abounded  in  energy ;  but 
still  they  cannot  be  compared  in  wit,  in  humor,  in 
depth  of  sentiment,  in  beauty  of  diction,  in  thoughtful- 
ness,  in  lyrical  force,  with  the  poems  of  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  of  his  life.  It  is  needless  to  give  even  the 
titles  of  the  many  pieces  which  are  fixed  in  the  mem- 
ory of  all  cultivated  readers  among  his  countrymen. 
His  novels  "  Elsie  Yenner "  and  "  The  Guardian 
Angel "  rank  high  among  original  American  contri- 
butions to  the  domain  of  romance.  In  prose,  as  in 
verse,  his  fecundity  and  vigor  of  thought  have  found 
adequate  expression  in  a  corresponding  point  and 
compactness  of  style. 

James  Russell  Lowell  is  now  in  the  prime  of  his 
genius  and  at  the  height  of  his  reputation.  His 
earlier  poems,  pervaded  by  the  transcendental  tone  of 
thought  current  in  New  England  at  the  time  they 
were  written,  were  full  of  promise,  but  gave  little 
evidence  of  the  wide  variety  of  power  he  has  since 
displayed.  The  spirituality  of  his  thinking  has  deep- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  79 

ened  with  advancing  years.  Nothing  in  his  first  vol- 
ume, "  A  Year's  Life,"  suggests  the  depth  of  moral 
beauty  he  afterward  embodied  in  "  The  Vision  of  Sir 
Launfal,"  the  throng  of  subtle  thoughts  and  images 
which  almost  confuse  us  by  their  multiplicity  in  "  The 
Cathedral,"  and  the  grandeur  of  "  The  Commemora- 
tion Ode."  "  The  Biglow  Papers  "  are  unique  in  our 
literature.  Lowell  adds  to  his  other  merits  that  of 
being  an  accomplished  philologist;  but  granting  his 
scholarship  as  an  investigator  of  the  popular  idioms 
of  foreign  speech,  he  must  be  principally  esteemed  for 
his  knowledge  of  the  Yankee  dialect.  Hosea  Biglow 
is  almost  the  only  writer  who  uses  the  dialect  prop- 
erly, and  most  other  pretenders  to  a  knowledge  of  it 
must  be  considered  caricaturists  as  compared  with 
him  ;  for  Biglow,  like  Burns,  makes  the  dialect  he 
employs  flexible  to  every  mood  of  thought  and  pas- 
sion, from  good  sense  as  solid  as  granite  to  the  most 
bewitching  descriptions  of  'nature  and  the  loftiest 
affirmations  of  conscience.  As  a  prose  writer  Lowell  is 
quite  as  eminent  as  he  is  as  a  poet.  His  essays,  where 
Nature  is  his  theme,  are  brimful  of  delicious  descrip- 
tions, and  his  critical  papers  on  Chaucer,  Shakspeare, 
Spenser,  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Rousseau,  not  to  mention 
others,  are  masterpieces  of  their  kind.  His  defect, 
both  as  poet  and  prose  writer,  comes  from  the  too 
lavish  use  of  his  seemingly  inexhaustible  powers  of 
wit,  fancy,  and  imagination.  He  is  apt  to  sacrifice 
unity  of  general  effect  by  overloading  his  paragraphs 
with  suggestive  meaning.  That  wise  reserve  of 


80  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

expression  to  which  Longfellow  owes  so  much  of  his 
reputation,  that  subordination  of  minor  thoughts  to 
the  leading  thought  of  the  poem  or  essay,  are  fre- 
quently disregarded  by  Lowell.  His  mind  is  too  rich 
to  submit  even  to  artistic  checks  on  its  fertility. 

Julia  Ward  Howe,  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
women  in  the  United  States,  a  scholar,  a  reasoner,  an 
excellent  prose  writer,  a  poet  with  the  power  to  up- 
lift as  well  as  to  please,  is  also  generally  known  as  a 
champion  of  the  right  of  women  to  vote.  In  the 
facts,  arguments,  and  appeals  which  she  brings  to 
bear  on  this  debated  question,  and  the  felicity  of  the 
occasional  sarcastic  strokes  with  which  she  smites  an 
opponent  who  has  offended  her  reason  as  well  as 
vexed  her  patience,  we  find  a  woman  fully  equipped 
to  do  battle  for  the  cause  of  woman ;  and  certainly 
that  man  must  be  exceptionally  endowed  with  brains 
who  can  afford  to  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  despising 
her  intellect.  Her  thrilling  "  Battle  Hymn  of  the 
Republic  "  is  an  artistic  variation  on  the  John  Brown 
song.  The  original  is  incomparable  of  its  kind.  No 
poet  could  have  written  it.  Such  rudeness  and  wild- 
ness  are  beyond  the  conception  even  of  Walt  Whit- 
man and  the  author  of  "  Festus."  One  would  say 
that  it  was  written  by  the  common  soldiers  who  sang 
it  as  they  advanced  to  battle  ;  that  it  was  an  ele- 
mental tune,  suited  to  the  rugged  natures  that  shouted 
its  refrain  as  they  resolutely  faced  death,  with  the 
confident  assurance  of  immortality.  The  words  are 
verbal  equivalents  of  rifle-bullets  and  cannon-balls ; 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  81 

the  tune  is  a  noise,  like  the  shriek  of  the  shell  as  it 
ascends  to  the  exact  point  whence  it  can  most  surely 
descend  to  blast  and  kill.  Mrs.  Howe's  hymn  has 
not  this  elemental  character,  but  it  is  still  wonderfully 
animating  and  invigorating ;  and  the  constant  use  of 
Scripture  phrases  shows  the  high  level  of  thought 
and  sentiment  to  which  her  soul  had  mounted,  and 
from  which  she  poured  forth  her  exulting  strains. 
"  Our  Country,"  "  The  Flag,"  "  Our  Orders,"  are  also 
thoughtful  or  impassioned  outbreaks  of  the  same 
spiritual  feeling  which  gives  vitality  to  the  "  Battle 
Hymn." 

The  authors  thus  grouped  together,  differing  so. 
widely  as  they  do  in  the  individuality  impressed  on 
their  genius,  are  still  connected  by  that  peculiar  im- 
pulse given  to  American  literature  by  Channing's 
revolt  against  the  Calvinistic  view  of  human  nature 
and  by  the  emphasis  they  all  lay  on  the  ethical  senti- 
ment, not  merely  in  its  practical  application  to  the 
concerns  of  actual  life,  but  as  highly  idealized  in 
its  application  to  that  life  which  is  called  divine. 
The  new  poetical  metaphysics  and  theology  had  not 
touched  the  mind  of  Charles  Sprague.  His  poem  of 
"  Curiosity,"  delivered  in  1829  before  the  Phi  Beta 
Society  of  Harvard  College,  is  so  excellent  in  descrip- 
tion, in  the  various  pictures  it  gives  of  human  life,  in 
the  pungency  of  its  wit  and  satire,  that  it  deserves  a 
place  among  the  best  productions  of  the  school  of 
Pope  and  Goldsmith.  His  odes  are  more  open  to 
criticism,  though  they  contain  many  thoughtful, 

6 


: 


82  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

impassioned,  and  resounding  lines.  His  "  Shakspeare  " 
ode  is  the  best  of  these  ;  and  he  concludes  it  with  a 
very  felicitous  image,  contrasting  the  success  of  the 
great  poet  of  England  in  doing  that  which  her  states- 
men and  soldiers  could  not  perform  :  — 

"Our  Roman -hearted  fathers  broke 
Thy  parent  empire's  galling  yoke  ; 
But  thou,  harmonious  monarch  of  the  mind, 
Around  their  sons  a  gentler  chain  shall  bind. 
Still  o'er  our  land  shall  Albion's  sceptre  wave, 
And  what  her  mighty  lion  lost  her  mightier  swan  shall  save." 

A  more  homely  illustration  of  the  fact  that  Shak- 
speare binds  the  English  race  together  whithersoever 
it  wanders,  is  afforded  by  the  remark  of  a  sturdy 
New  England  farmer  when  he  heard  the  rumor  that 
England  intended  to  make  the  Mason  and  Slidell 
affair  an  occasion  for  war  with  the  United  States, 
and  thus  insure  success  to  the  Confederates.  The 
farmer  paused,  reflected,  sought  out  in  his  mind 
something  which  would  indicate  his  complete  sever- 
ance not  only  from  the  people  of  England,  but  from 
the  English  mind,  and  at  last  condensed  all  his  wrath 
in  this  intense  remark,  "  Well,  if  that  report  is  true, 
all  I  can  say  is  that  Lord  Lyons  is  welcome  to  my 
copy  of  Shakspeare." 

Perhaps  Sprague's  most  original  poems  are  those  in 
which  he  consecrated  his  domestic  affections.  Words- 
worth himself  would  have  hailed  these  with  delight. 
Anybody  who  can  read  with  unwet  eyes  "I  See 
Still,"  "  The  Family  Meeting,"  "  The  Brothers,"  and 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  83 

"  Lines  on  the  Death  of  M.  S.  C.,"  is  a  critic  who  has 
as  little  perception  of  the  language  of  natural  emotion 
as  of  the  reserves  and  refinements  of  poetic  art. 

Sprague  had  the  good  fortune,  as  the  cashier  of  a 
leading  Boston  bank,  to  be  independent  of  his  poetic 
gifts,  considered  as  means  of  subsistence.  But 
Nathaniel  Parker  Willis  was,  perhaps,  the  first  of  our 
poets  to  prove  that  literature  could  be  relied  upon  as 
a  good  business.  He  certainly  enjoyed  all  those  ad- 
vantages which  accompany  competence,  and  the  only 
bank  he  could  draw  upon  was  his  brain.  He  thor- 
oughly understood  the  art  of  producing  what  people 
desired  to  read,  and  for  which  publishers  were  will- 
ing to  pay.  His  early  Scripture  sketches,  written 
when  he  was  a  student  of  Yale,  gave  him  the  reputa- 
tion of  a  promising  genius ;  and  though  the  genius  did 
not  afterward  take  the  direction  to  which  its  first 
successes  pointed,  it  gained  in  strength  and  breadth 
with  the  writer's  advancing  years.  In  his  best  poems 
he  displayed  energy  both  of  thought  and  imagination  ; 
but  his  predominant  characteristics  were  keenness  of 
observation,  fertility  of  fancy,  quickness  of  wit,  shrewd- 
ness of  understanding,  a  fine  perception  of  beauty,  a 
remarkable  felicity  in  the  choice  of  words,  and  a  sub- 
tle sense  of  harmony  in  their  arrangement,  whether 
his  purpose  was  to  produce  melodious  verse  or  musi- 
cal prose.  But  he  doubtless  squandered  his  powers 
tr.  the  attempt  to  turn  them  into  commodities.  To 
this  he  was  driven  by  his  necessities,  and  he  always 
frankly  acknowledged  that  he  could  have  done  better 


84  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

with  his  brain  had  he  possessed  an  income  corre- 
sponding to  that  of  other  eminent  American  men  of 
letters,  who  could  select  their  topics  without  regard 
to  the  immediate  market  value  of  what  they  wrote. 
He  became  the  favorite  poet,  satirist,  and  "  organ  "  of 
the  fashionable  world.  He  wrote  editorials,  letters, 
essays,  novels,  which  were  full  of  evidences  of  his 
rare  talent  without  doing  justice  to  it.  He  idealized 
trivialities ;  he  gave  a  kind  of  reality  to  the  unreal ; 
and  week  after  week  he  lifted  into  importance  the 
unsubstantial  matters  which  for  the  time  occupied 
the  attention  of  "  good  society."  Some  of  his  phrases, 
such  as  "  the  upper  ten  thousand,"  "  Fifth-Ave-nudity," 
are  still  remembered.  The  paper  which  Willis  ed- 
ited, the  "  Home  Journal,"  exerted  a  great  deal  of 
influence.  However  slight  might  be  the  subjects, 
there  can  be  no  question  that  the  editor  worked  hard 
in  bringing  the  resources  of  his  knowledge,  observa- 
tion, wit,  and  fancy  to  place  them  in  their  most  at- 
tractive lights.  The  trouble  was  not  in  the  vigor  of 
the  faculties,  but  in  the  thinness  of  much  of  the  mat- 
ter. As  an  editor,  however,  Willis  had  an  opportu- 
nity to  display  his  grand  generosity  of  heart,  and  the 
peculiar  power  he  had  of  detecting  the  slightest  trace 
of  genius  in  writers  who  were  the  objects  of  his  appre- 
ciative eulogy.  In  the  whole  history  of  American 
literature  there  is  no  other  example  of  a  prominent 
man  of  letters  who  showed,  like  Willis,  such  a  pas- 
sionate desire  to  make  his  natural  influence  effective 
in  dragging  into  prominence  writers  who  either  had 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  85 

no  reputation  at  all,  or  whose  reputation  was  noto- 
riously less  than  his. 

James  G.  Percival  had  not  Willis's  happy  disposi- 
tion and  adaptive  talent.  Though  recognized  by 
friends  as  a  poet  of  the  first  (American)  class,  he 
never  succeeded  in  interesting  the  great  body  of  his 
intelligent  countrymen  in  any  but  a  few  of  his  minor 
poems.  He  ranks  among  the  great  sorrowing  class 
of  neglected  geniuses.  A  man  of  large  though  some- 
what undigested  erudition,  knowing  many  languages 
and  many  sciences,  he  was  seemingly  ignorant  of  the 
art  of  marrying  his  knowledge  to  his  imagination. 
When  he  wrote  in  prose,  he  was  full  of  matter  ;  when 
he  wrote  in  verse,  he  was  full  of  glow  and  aspiration 
and  fancy,  but  wanting  in  matter.  At  present,  the 
poet  is  required  to  supply  nutriment  as  well  as  stimu- 
lant. Tennyson's  immense  popularity,  which  makes 
every  new  poem  from  his  pen  a  literary  event,  is  to 
be  referred  not  merely  to  his  imaginative  power,  but 
to  his  keeping  himself  on  a  level  with  the  science  and 
scholarship  of  his  age.  "  In  Memoriam  "  would  not 
have  attracted  so  much  attention  had  it  not  been  felt 
that  the  poet  who  celebrates  a  dead  friend  was  at  the 
same  time  all  alive  to  the  importance  of  problems, 
now  vehemently  discussed  by  theologians  and  scien- 
tists, which  relate  to  the  question  of  the  reality  and 
immortality  of  the  human  soul.  Emerson,  also,  is 
not  more  noted  for  his  grand  reliance  on  the  soul 
than  for  his  acquaintance  with  the  scientific  facts  and 
theories  which  appear  to  deny  its  existence. 


86  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe,  like  Willis  and  Percival,  adopted, 
or  was  forced  into,  literature  as  a  profession.  He 
was  a  man  of  rare  original  capacity,  cursed  by  an 
incurable  perversity  of  character.  It  cannot  be  said 
he  failed  of  success.  The  immediate  recognition  as 
positive  additions  to  our  literature  of  such  poems  as 
"  The  Raven,"  «  Annabel  Lee,"  and  "  The  Bells,"  and 
of  such  prose  stories  as  "  The  Gold  Bug,"  "  The  Pur- 
loined Letter,"  "  The  Murders  of  Rue  Morgue,"  and 
"  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,"  indicates  that  the 
public  was  not  responsible  for  the  misfortunes  of  his 
life.  He  also  assumed  the  position  of  general  censor 
and  supervisor  of  American  letters,  and  in  this  he 
also  measurably  succeeded ;  for  his  critical  power, 
when  not  biassed  by  his  caprices,  was  extraordinarily 
acute,  and  during  the  period  of  his  domination  no 
critic's  praise  was  more  coveted  than  his,  and  no 
critic's  blame  more  dreaded.  In  most  of  his  literary 
work  he  displayed  that  rare  combination  of  reason 
and  imagination  to  which  may  be  given  the  name  of 
imaginative  analysis.  He  was  so  proud  of  this  power 
that  he  was  never  weary  of  unfolding,  even  to  a 
chance  acquaintance,  the  genesis  of  his  poems  and 
stories,  accounting,  on  reasonable  grounds,  for  every 
melodious  variation  in  the  verse,  every  little  incident 
touched  upon  in  the  narrative,  as  steps  in  a  deductive 
argument  from  assumed  premises.  One  of  two  things 
was  necessary  to  quicken  his  mind  into  full  activity. 
The  first  was  animosity  against  an  individual ;  the 
second  was  some  chance  suggestion  which  awakened 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  87 

and  tasked  all  the  resources  of  his  intellectual  inge- 
nuity. The  wild,  weird,  unearthly,  tinker-natural,  as 
distinguished  from  supernatural,  element  in  his  most 
popular  poems  and  stories  is  always  accompanied  by 
an  imagination  which  not  only  spiritually  discerns 
but  relentlessly  dissects.  The  morbid  element,  di- 
recting his  powers,  came  from  his  character ;  the 
perfection  of  his  analysis  came  from  an  intellect  as 
fertile  as  it  was  calm,  and  as  delicate  in  selecting 
every  minute  thread  of  thought  as  in  seizing  every 
evanescent  shade  of  feeling. 

Bayard  Taylor  is  justly  esteemed  as  one  of  the 
most  eminent  of  American  men  of  letters.  A  grad- 
uate of  no  university,  he  has  mastered  many  lan- 
guages ;  born  in  a  Pennsylvania  village,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  been  everywhere  and  to  have  seen  every- 
body ;  and  all  that  he  has  achieved  is  due  to  his  own 
persistent  energy  and  tranquil  self-reliance.  Journal- 
ist, traveller,  essayist,  critic,  novelist,  scholar,  and 
poet,  he  has  ever  preserved  the  simplicity  of  nature 
which  marked  his  first  book  of  travels,  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  style  which  the  knowledge  of  many  lands 
and  many  tongues  has  never  tempted  him  to  abandon. 
His  books  of  voyages  and  travels  are  charming,  but 
their  charm  consists  in  the  austere  closeness  of  the 
words  he  uses  to  the  facts  he  records,  the  scenery  he 
depicts,  and  the  adventures  he  narrates.  The  same 
simplicity  of  style  characterizes  his  poems,  his  few 
novels,  and  numerous  stories.  The  richness  of  his 
vocabulary  never  impels  him  to  sacrifice  truth  of  rep- 


88  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

reservation  to  the  transient  effectiveness  which  is 
readily  secured  by  indulgence  in  declamation.  One 
sometimes  wonders  that  the  master  of  so  many  lan- 
guages should  be  content  to  express  himself  with  such 
rigid  economy  of  word  and  phrase  in  the  one  he  learned 
at  his  mother's  knee.  Among  Taylor's  minor  poems 
it  is  difficult  to  select  those  which  exhibit  his  genius  at 
its  topmost  point.  Perhaps  "  Camadeva  "  may  be  in- 
stanced as  best  showing  his  power  of  blending  exqui- 
site melody  with  serene,  satisfying,  uplifting  thought. 
The  song  which  begins  with  the  invocation, "  Daughter 
of  Egypt,  veil  thine  eyes  !  "  is  as  good  as  could  be  se- 
lected from  his  many  pieces  to  indicate  the  energy 
and  healthiness  of  his  lyric  impulse.  His  longer 
poems  would  reward  a  careful  criticism.  The  best  of 
them  is  "  The  Masque  of  the  Gods  "  —  a  poem  com- 
prehensive in  conception,  noble  in  purpose,  and  ad- 
mirable in  style.  Taylor  has  also  done  a  great  work 
in  translating,  or  rather  transfusing,  the  two  parts  of 
Goethe's  u  Faust "  into  various  English  metres  cor- 
responding to  the  original  German  verse,  literal  not 
only  in  reproducing  ideas,  but  in  reproducing  melodies. 
This  long  labor  could  only  have  been  undertaken  by 
an  American  man  of  letters  whose  love  of  lucre  was 
entirely  subordinate  to  his  love  of  literature. 

Another  American  writer  who  has  made  literature 
a  profession  is  George  William  Curtis.  Mr.  Curtis 
opened  a  new  vein  of  satiric  fiction  in  "  The  Potiphar 
Papers,"  "  Prue  and  I,"  and  "  Trumps  ; "  but  prob- 
ably the  great  extent  of  his  popularity  is  due  to  his 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  89 

papers  in  "  Harper's  Magazine,"  under  the  general  title 
of  the  Editor's  Easy  Chair.  In  these  he  has  developed 
every  faculty  of  his  mind  and  every  felicity  of  his 
disposition  ;  the  large  variety  of  the  topics  he  has 
treated  would  alone  be  sufficient  to  prove  the  gener- 
ous breadth  of  his  culture  ;  but  it  is  in  the  treatment 
of  his  topics  that  his  peculiarly  attractive  genius  is 
displayed  in  all  its  abundant  resources  of  sense, 
knowledge,  wit,  fancy,  reason,  and  sentiment.  His 
tone  is  not  only  manly,  but  gentlemanly  ;  his  persua- 
siveness is  an  important  element  of  his  influence ; 
and  no  reformer  has  equalled  him  in  the  art  of  insin- 
uating sound  principles  into  prejudiced  intellects  by 
putting  them  in  the  guise  of  pleasantries.  He  can  on 
occasion  send  forth  sentences  of  ringing  invective ; 
but  in  the  Easy  Chair  he  generally  prefers  the  atti- 
tude of  urbanity  which  the  title  of  his  department 
suggests.  His  style,  in  addition  to  its  other  merits, 
is  rhythmical ;  so  that  his  thoughts  slide,  as  it  were, 
into  the  reader's  mind  in  a  strain  of  music.  Not  the 
least  remarkable  of  his  characteristics  is  the  undi- 
minished  vigor  and  elasticity  of  his  intelligence,  in 
spite  of  the  incessant  draughts  he  has  for  years  been 
making  upon  it. 

In  the  domain  of  history  and  biography  American 
literature,  during  the  past  fifty  years,  can  boast  of 
works  of  standard  value.  The  most  indefatigable  of 
all  explorers  into  the  unpublished  letters  and  docu- 
ments illustrating  the  history  of  the  United  States 
was  Jared  Sparks.  His  voluminous  editions  of  "  The 


90  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Life  and  Writings  of  Washington  and  Franklin,"  his 
"  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  Revolution,"  and 
other  books  devoted  to  the  task  of  adding  to  the 
authentic  materials  of  American  history,  are  mines 
of  information  to  the  students  of  history ;  hut  Mr. 
Sparks,  though  a  clear  and  forcible  writer,  had  not 
the  gift  of  attractiveness  ;  and  the  results  of  his  in- 
vestigations have  been  more  popularly  presented  by 
Irving  in  his  "Life  of  Washington,"  and  Parton 
in  his  "  Life  of  Franklin,"  than  by  his  own  biogra- 
phies of  those  eminent  men,  based  on  the  results  of 
tireless  original  research  extending  through  many 
years. 

In  the  political  history  of  the  country  there  only 
remain  two  "  families,"  in  the  English  sense  of  the 
term.  These  are  the  Adamses  and  the  Hamiltons. 
Charles  F.  Adams,  Sr.,  has  published  a  collection  of 
his  grandfather's  works,  in  ten  volumes,  introduced  by 
a  life  of  John  Adams,  which  is  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful of  American  biographies,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
positive  addition  to  the  early  history  of  the  United 
States  under  our  first  two  Presidents.  An  edition  of 
Hamilton's  works  has  also  been  published ;  and  one 
of  Hamilton's  sons  has  written  a  "  History  of  the  Re- 
public of  the  United  States,"  "  as  traced  in  the  writings 
of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  of  his  contemporaries." 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  controversies  between  the 
two  families  have  added  new  matter  of  great  value  to 
the  mass  of  documents  which  shed  light  on  our  early 
history  as  a  united  nation. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  91 

It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  other  works, 
which  are  valuable  contributions  to  our  annals  ;  but 
in  1834  George  Bancroft  appeared  as  the  historian 
of  the  United  States,  or  rather  the  historian  of  the 
process  by  which  the  States  became  united.  He  pro- 
fessed to  have  seized  on  the  underlying  Idea  which 
shaped  the  destinies  of  the  country  ;  in  later  volumes 
he  indicated  his  initiation  in  the  councils  of  Provi- 
dence ;  and  though  his  last  volume  (the  tenth),  pub- 
lished in  1874,  only  brings  the  history  down  to  the 
conclusion  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  his  labor  of 
forty  years  has  confirmed  him  in  his  historical  phi- 
losophy. Bancroft  has  been  prominent  in  American 
politics  during  all  this  period ;  he  has  been  succes- 
sively Collector  of  the  port  of  Boston,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  American  Minister  in  London  and  Berlin, 
and  has  thus  enjoyed  every  possible  advantage  of  cor- 
recting his  declamation  by  his  experience;  but  his 
tendency  to  rhapsody  has  not  diminished  with  the 
increase  of  his  knowledge  and  his  years.  He  has,  to 
be  sure,  availed  himself  of  every  opportunity  to  add 
to  the  materials  which  enter  into  the  composition  of 
American  history,  and  has  been  as  indefatigable  in 
research  as  confident  in  theorizing.  The  different 
volumes  of  his  work  are  of  various  literary  merit,  but 
they  are  all  stamped  by  the  unmistakable  impress  of 
vthe  historian's  individuality.  There  is  no  dogmatism 
more  exclusive  than  that  of  fixed  ideas  and  ideals, 
and  this  dogmatism  Mr.  Bancroft  exhibits  throughout 
his  history*  both  in  its  declamatory  and  speculative 


92  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

form.  Indeed,  there  are  chapters  in  each  of  his  vol- 
umes which,  considered  apart,  might  lead  one  to  sup- 
pose that  the  work  was  misnamed,  and  that  it  should 
be  entitled,  "  The  Psychological  Autobiography  of 
George  Bancroft,  as  Illustrated  by  Incidents  and 
Characters  in  the  Annals  of  the  United  States." 
Generally,  however,  his  fault  is  not  in  suppressing  or 
overlooking  facts,  but  in  disturbing  the  relations  of 
facts,  —  substituting  their  relation  to  the  peculiar  in- 
tellectual and  moral  organization  of  the  historian  to 
their  natural  relations  with  each  other.  Still,  he  has 
written  the  most  popular  history  of  the  United  States 
(up  to  1782)  which  has  yet  appeared,  and  has  made 
a  very  large  addition  to  the  materials  on  which  it 
rests.  Perhaps  he  would  not  have  been  so  tireless  in 
research  had  he  not  been  so  passionately  earnest  in 
speculation. 

The  necessarily  slow  progress  of  Mr.  Bancroft's 
history,  and  the  various  protests  against  his  theories 
and  his  judgments,  impelled  Richard  Hildreth,  —  a 
bold,  blunt,  hard-headed,  and  resolute  man,  caustic 
in  temper,  keen  in  intellect,  indefatigable  in  indus- 
try, and  blessed  with  an  honest  horror  of  shams,  —  to 
write  a  history  of  the  United  States  in  which  our  fa- 
thers should  be  presented  exactly  as  they  were,  "  un- 
bedaubed  with  patriotic  rouge."  The  first  volume  was 
published  in  1849,  the  sixth  in  1852.  The  whole 
work  included  the  events  between  the  discovery  and 
colonization  of  the  continent  and  the  year  1821.  As  a 
book  of  reference,  this  history  still  remains  as  the  best 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  93 

in  our  catalogues  of  works  on  American  history.  The 
style  is  concise,  the  facts  happily  combined,  the  judg- 
ments generally  good ;  and  while  justice  is  done  to 
our  great  men,  there  is  everywhere  observable  an 
almost  vindictive  contempt  of  persons  who  have  made 
themselves  "  great "  by  the  arts  of  the  demagogue. 
Hildreth  studied  carefully  all  the  means  of  informa- 
tion within  his  reach;  but  his  plan  did  not  contem- 
plate original  research  on  the  large  scale  in  which  it 
was  prosecuted  by  Bancroft. 

The  "  History  of  New  England,"  by  John  G.  Pal- 
frey, is  distinguished  by  thoroughness  of  investigation, 
fairness  of  judgment,  and  clearness  and  temperance 
of  style.  It  is  one  of  the  ablest  contributions  as  yet 
made  to  our  colonial  history.  The  various  histories 
of  Francis  Parkman  —  "  The  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac," 
"  The  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World,"  "  The 
Jesuits  in  North  America,"  "  The  Discovery  of  the 
Great  West" — exhibit  a  singular  combination  of  the 
talents  of  the  historian  with  those  of  the  novelist. 
The  materials  he  has  laboriously  gathered  are  dis- 
posed in  their  just  relations  by  a  sound  understand- 
ing, while  they  are  vivified  by  a  realizing  mind.  The 
result  is  a  series  of  narratives  in  which  accuracy  in 
the  slightest  details  is  found  compatible  with  the 
most  glowing  exercise  of  historical  imagination,  and 
the  use  of  a  style  singularly  rapid,  energetic,  and 
picturesque. 

William  H.  Prescott  had  one  of  those  happily  con- 
stituted natures  in  which  intellectual  conscientiousness 


94  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  moral  quality  which 
commonly  monopolizes  the  name  of  conscience.  He  was 
as  incapable  of  lies  of  the  brain  as  of  lies  of  the  heart. 
When  he  undertook  to  write  histories,  he  employed 
an  ample  fortune  to  obtain  new  materials,  sifted  them 
with  the  utmost  care,  weighed  opposing  statements 
in  an  understanding  which  was  unbiassed  by  preju- 
dice, and,  suppressing  the  laborious  processes  by 
which  he  had  arrived  at  definite  conclusions,  pre- 
sented the  results  of  his  toil  in  a  narrative  so  easy, 
limpid,  vivid,  and  picturesque  that  his  delighted 
readers  hardly  realized  that  what  was  so  pleasing  and 
instructive  to  them  could  have  cost  much  pain  and 
labor  to  him.  Echoes  beyond  the  Atlantic,  coming 
from  England,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  and  Spain, 
gradually  forced  the  conviction  into  the  ordinary 
American  mind  that  the  historian  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  of  the  conquerors  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  of 
Philip  the  Second,  had  in  his  quiet  Boston  home 
made  large  additions  to  the  history  of  Europe  in  one 
of  its  most  important  epochs.  Humboldt  was  spe- 
cially emphatic  in  his  praise.  Prescott  was  enrolled 
among  the  members  of  many  foreign  academies,  whose 
doors  were  commonly  shut  to  all  who  could  not  show 
that  they  had  made  contributions  to  human  knowl- 
edge as  well  as  to  human  entertainment.  Much  of 
his  foreign  reputation  was  doubtless  due  to  his  lavish 
expenditure  of  money  to  obtain  rare  books  and  copies 
of  rare  manuscripts  which  contained  novel  and  im- 
portant facts ;  but  his  wide  popularity  is  to  be  re- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  95 

ferred  to  his  possession  of  the  faculty  or  historical 
imagination,  —  that  is,  his  power  of  realizing  and  re- 
producing the  events  and  characters  of  past  ages,  and 
of  becoming  mentally  a  contemporary  of  the  persons 
whose  actions  he  narrated.  His  partial  blindness, 
which  compelled  him  to  listen  rather  than  to  read, 
and  to  employ  a  cunningly  contrived  apparatus  in 
order  to  write,  was  in  his  case  an  advantage.  He 
had  the  eyes  of  friends  and  faithful  secretaries  eager 
to  serve  him.  What  passed  into  his  ear  became  an 
image  in  his  mind,  and  his  bodily  infirmity  quickened 
his  mental  sight.  His  judgment  and  imagination 
brooded  over  the  throng  of  details  to  which  he  lis- 
tened ;  he  formed  a  mental  picture  out  of  the  dry 
facts ;  and  by  assiduous  thinking  he  disposed  the 
facts  in  their  right  relations  without  losing  his  hold 
on  their  vitality  as  pictures  of  a  past  age.  People 
who  passed  him  in  his  daily  afternoon  walks  around 
Boston  Common  knew  that  his  thoughts  were  busy  on 
Ferdinand,  or  Cortez,  or  Pizarro,  or  Philip,  and  not 
on  the  news  of  the  day ;  and  his  rapid  pace  and  the 
peculiar  swing  of  his  cane  as  he  trudged  on  indicated 
that  he  was  looking  not  on  what  was  imperfectly 
present  to  his  bodily  eye,  but  pn  objects  to  which 
physical  exercise  had  given  new  life  and  signifi- 
cance as  surveyed  by  the  eye  of  his  mind.  His 
intense  absorption  in  the  subject-matter  of  his  va- 
rious histories  gave  to  them  a  peculiar  attractiveness 
which  few  novels  possess.  Anybody  who,  after  read- 
ing Lew  Wallace's  recent  romance  of  "  The  Fair 


96  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

God,"  or  Dr.  Bird's  "  Calavar,"  will  then  turn  to 
Prescott's  "  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico," 
cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  historian's  supe- 
riority to  the  romancer  in  the  mere  point  of  romantic 
interest. 

Another  American  historian,  John  Lothrop  Motley, 
the  author  of  "  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic," 
"The  History  of  the  United  Netherlands,"  "The 
History  of  John  of  Barneveld,"  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
of  the  great  Thirty  Years'  War,  has  been,  like  Prescott, 
untiring  in  research,  has  made  large  additions  to  the 
facts,  of  European  history,  has  decisively  settled  many 
debatable  questions  which  have  tried  the  sagacity  of 
French  and  German  historians  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  has  poured  forth  the  results  of  his  re- 
searches in  a  series  of  impassioned  narratives,  which 
warm  the  blood  and  kindle  the  imagination  as  well 
as  inform  the  understanding.  His  histories  are,  in 
some  degree,  epics.  As  he  frequently  crosses  Pres- 
cott's  path  in  his  presentation  of  the  ideas,  passions, 
and  persons  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  is  curious  to 
note  the  serenity  of  Prescott's  narrative  as  contrasted 
with  the  swift,  chivalric  impatience  of  wrong  which 
animates  almost  every  page  of  Motley.  Both  imagi- 
natively reproduce  what  they  have  investigated  ;  both 
have  the  eye  to  see  and  the  reason  to  discriminate ; 
both  substantially  agree  in  their  judgment  as  to 
events  and  characters ;  but  Prescott  quietly  allows 
his  readers,  as  a  jury,  to  render  their  verdict  on  the 
statement  of  the  facts,  while  Motley  somewhat  fiercely 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  97 

pushes  forward  to  anticipate  it.  Prescott  calmly 
represents ;  Motley  intensely  feels.  Prescott  is  on  a 
watch-tower  surveying  the  battle ;  Motley  plunges 
into  the  thickest  of  the  fight.  In  temperament  no  two 
historians  could  be  more  apart ;  in  judgment  they  are 
identical.  As  both  historians  are  equally  incapable 
of  lying,  Motley  finds  it  necessary  to  overload  his 
narrative  with  details  which  justify  his  vehemence, 
while  Prescott  can  afford  to  omit  them,  on  account 
of  his  reputation  for  a  benign  impartiality  between 
the  opposing  parties.  A  Roman  Catholic  disputant 
would  find  it  hard  to  fasten  a  quarrel  on  Prescott ; 
but  with  Motley  he  could  easily  detect  an  occasion 
for  a  duel  to  the  death.  It  is  to  be  said  that  Motley's 
warmth  of  feeling  never  betrays  him  into  intentional 
injustice  to  any  human  being ;  his  histories  rest  on 
a  basis  of  facts  which  no  critic  has  shaken.  And  to 
the  merit  of  being  a  historian  of  wide  repute  it  is  to 
be  added  that  he  has  ever  been  a  stanch  friend,  in  the 
emergencies  of  the  politics  of  the  country,  to  every 
cause  based  on  truth,  honor,  reason,  freedom,  and 
justice.  The  same  high  chivalrous  tone  which  rings 
through  his  histories  has  been  heard  in  every  crisis 
of  his  public  career. 

The  European  histories  of  Prescott  and  Motley  re- 
quired an  introduction,  and  this  was  furnished  by 
John  Foster  Kirk,  in  his  "History  of  Charles  the 
Bold."  Mr.  Kirk  was  one  of  the  ablest,  most  scholarly, 
and  most  enthusiastic  of  Prescott's  secretaries.  He 
had  the  sagacity  to  perceive  the  importance  of  the 

7 


98  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

period  of  which  he  proposed  to  write  the  history,  and 
the  perseverance  to  execute  the  difficult  task.  Charles 
and  Louis  were  known  to  all  people  who  spoke  the 
English  tongue  by  Scott's  famous  novel  of  "  Quentin 
Durward,"  and  his  feebler  concluding  romance  of 
"  Anne  of  Geierstein  ; "  and  Mr.  Kirk  had  a  right  to 
suppose  that  an  account  of  an  important  era  of  Euro- 
pean history  would  lose  none  of  its  attractiveness  by 
being  rigidly  conformed  to  historical  facts.  As  to 
his  research,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  in  his  investi- 
gations in  the  archives  of  Switzerland  alone  he  was 
probably  the  first  man  to  disturb  the  dust  which 
nearly  four  centuries  had  heaped  on  precious  manu- 
script documents.  As  a  thinker  he  is  always  inge- 
nious, and  as  generally  sound  as  he  is  original.  In 
narrative,  the  richness  of  his  materials,  as  in  the  case 
of  Motley,  tempts  him  sometimes  into  seemingly 
needless  minuteness  of  detail. 

Among  other  works  which  do  credit  to  the  histor- 
ical literature  of  the  country  may  be  named  "  The 
Life  and  Correspondence  of  Nathaniel  Greene,"  from 
original  materials,  by  George  W.  Greene,  —  a  work 
which,  of  its  kind,  is  of  the  first  class.  The  same 
writer's  "  Historical  View  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion "  is  an  excellent  compend  drawn  from  original 
sources.  The  various  volumes  of  Richard  Frothing- 
ham  are  admirable  for  accuracy  and  research.  On 
the  general  subject  of  history,  the  elaborate  work  of 
Dr.  John  W.  Draper,  «  The  History  of  the  Intellect- 
ual Developirient  of  Europe,"  is  comprehensive  in 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  99 

scope,  brilliant  in  style,  and  bold  in  speculation.  The 
first  volume  of  "  The  History  of  France,"  by  Parke 
Godwin,  is  so  good  that  it  is  to  be  regretted  the 
author  has  not  continued  his  task.  The  various  bi- 
ographies written  by  James  Parton  —  namely,  the 
lives  of  Burr,  Jackson,  Franklin,  and  Jefferson  — 
have  the  great  merit  of  being  entertaining,  while  they 
rest  on  a  solid  basis  of  facts  which  the  writer  has 
diligently  explored.  His  love  of  paradox,  though  a 
fault,  certainly  gives  piquancy  to  his  lucid  narrative. 
He  starts  commonly  with  a  peculiar  theory,  and  if 
sometimes  unjust,  the  injustice  comes  from  his  sur- 
veying the  subject  from  an  eccentric  point  of  view, 
and  not  from  any  deliberate  intention  to  misstate 
facts  or  disturb  their  relations.  "  The  Life  of  Josiah 
Quincy,"  by  his  son  Edmund  Quincy,  is  an  admirably 
executed  portrait  of  one  of  the  stoutest  specimens  of 
political  manhood  in  American  history.  Like  Parton, 
Quincy  interests  by  reproducing  the  period  of  which 
he  writes,  and,  like  him,  is  a  painter  of  "  interiors." 
"  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  in  America," 
by  Henry  Wilson,  is  the  work  of  a  man  who  as  Sena- 
tor of  the  United  States  was  long  in  the  thick  of  the 
fight  against  slavery,  who  knew  by  experience  the 
thoughts,  passions,  and  policies  of  the  parties  in  the 
contest,  and  who  wrote  the  history  of  the  contest 
with  simplicity,  earnestness,  and  impartiality.  "  The 
Life  of  Madison,"  by  William  C.  Rives,  is  a  work  of 
interest  and  value.  Among  the  antiquarians  and 
anecdotists  who  have  illustrated  American  history 


100  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

the  highest  reputation  belongs  to  Benson  J.  Lossing 
and  the  family  of  the  Drakes. 

In  military  history  and  biography,  the  most  notable 
work  the  country  has  produced  is  "  Memoirs  of  Gen- 
eral W.  T.  Sherman,  Written  by  Himself  "  —  or,  as 
it  might  be  called,  "  My  Deeds  in  My  Words."  The 
sharpness,  conciseness,  and  arbitrariness  of  the  auto- 
biographer's  style  are  characteristic  of  the  man.  He 
is  intensely  conscious  of  his  superiority.  The  word 
of  command  is  heard  ringing  in  every  page  of  his 
two  octavos.  No  man  could,  without  being  laughed  at, 
have  written  what  he  has  written  unless  he  had  done 
what  he  has  done.  Throughout  his  autobiography 
he  appears  self-centred,  self-referring,  self-absorbed, 
and,  when  opposed,  prouder  than  a  score  of  Spanish 
hidalgos.  Like  George  Eliot's  innkeeper,  he  divides 
human  thought  into  two  parts ;  namely,  "  my  idee," 
and  "  humbug,"  —  there  is  no  middle  point ;  but  then 
his  intelligence  is  as  solid,  quick,  broad,  and  full  of 
resource  as  his  will  is  defiantly  self-reliant.  Though 
there  is  something  bare,  bleak,  harsh,  abrupt,  in  his 
style,  his  blunt  egotism  every  now  and  then  runs 
into  a  rude  humor.  He  pats  on  the  back  men  as 
brave  if  not  as  skilful  as  himself,  and  looks  down 
upon  them  with  good-natured  toleration  as  long  as 
they  look  up  to  him  ;  but  when  they  do  not,  disbelief 
in  Sherman  denotes  incompetency  or  malignity  in  the 
critic.  His  enmities  are  hearted,  and  sometimes  vin- 
dictive. The  grave  has  closed  over  a  man  who  in  his 
sphere  did  at  least  as  much  as  Sherman  to  overturn 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  101 

the  Rebellion,  and  yet  Sherman  spares  not  Secretary 
Stanton  dead  any  more  than  he  spared  Stanton  living. 
Still,  the  book  is  thoroughly  a  soldier's  book,  and 
must  take  a  rank  among  the  most  instructive  and 
entertaining  military  memoirs  ever  written. 

In  that  department  of  history  which  describes  the 
rise  and  growth  of  literatures,  the  most  important 
work  which  has  been  produced  by  an  American  scholar 
is  "  The  History  of  Spanish  Literature,"  by  George 
Ticknor.  As  far  as  solid  and  accurate  learning  is 
concerned,  it  is  incomparably  the  best  history  of 
Spanish  literature  in  existence,  and  is  so  acknowl- 
edged in  Spain.  The  author,  in  his  travels  in  Europe, 
sought  out  every  book  which  shed  the  slightest  light 
on  his  great  subject.  The  materials  of  his  work  are 
a  carefully  selected  Spanish  library,  purchased  by 
himself.  He  deliberately  took  up  the  subject  as  a 
task  which  would  pleasingly  occupy  a  lifetime.  The 
latest  edition,  published  shortly  after  his  death,  showed 
that  the  volumes  always  were  on  his  desk  for  super- 
vision, revision,  and  the  introduction  of  new  facts, 
and  that  he  continued  pruning  and  enlarging  his 
work  to  the  day  when  the  pen  dropped  from  his 
hand.  In  research  he  was  as  indefatigable  as  he  was 
conscientious ;  and  possessing  ample  leisure  and  for- 
tune, he  tranquilly  exerted  the  powers  of  his  strong 
understanding  and  the  refinements  of  his  cultivated 
taste  in  forming  critical  judgments,  which,  if  some- 
what positive,  had  the  positiveness  of  knowledge  and 
reflection.  Besides,  his  culture  was  cosmopolitan ; 


102  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

he  had  enjoyed  as  wide  opportunities  for  conversing 
with  men  as  with  books,  and  there  was  hardly  an 
illustrious  European  scholar  or  man  of  letters  of  his 
time  with  whom  he  had  not  been  on  terms  of  inti- 
macy. But  erudition  cannot  confer  insight,  nor  can 
genius  be  communicated  by  mere  companionship  with 
it.  Mr.  Ticknor's  defect  was  a  lack  of  sympathy  and 
imagination,  and  to  the  historian  of  literature  noth- 
ing can  compensate  for  a  deficiency  in  these.  He 
could  not  mentally  transform  himself  into  a  Spaniard, 
and  therefore  could  riot  penetrate  into  the  secret  of 
the  genius  of  Spain.  He  studied  its  great  writers, 
but  he  did  not  look  into  and  behold  their  souls. 
There  was  something  cold,  hard,  resisting,  and  re- 
pellent in  his  mind.  His  criticism,  therefore,  exter- 
nally judicious,  had  not  for  its  basis  mental  facts 
vividly  conceived  and  vitally  interpreted.  Had  Mr. 
Ticknor  possessed  the  realizing  imagination  of  his 
friend  Prescott,  —  who  was  never  in  Spain,  —  he  would 
have  made  what  is  now  a  valuable  work  also  a  work 
of  fascinating  interest  and  extensive  popularity. 

In  the  department  of  history  may  be  included  works 
on  the  origin,  progress,  organization,  comparison,  and 
criticism  of  the  religious  ideas  of  various  nations. 
Three  works  of  this  kind  have  been  produced  in  the 
United  States  during  the  past  twenty  years,  each  of 
which  indicates  a  "  liberal "  bias.  The  first  is  "  The 
History  of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future  Life,"  by  William 
R.  Alger.  This  is  a  mine  of  generalized  information, 
obtained  by  great  labor,  and  sifted,  analyzed,  and  classi- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  103 

fied  with  care  and  skill.  Indeed,  it  is  said  that  some 
of  the  author's  acquaintances,  knowing  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  the  plan,  and  seeing  year  after  year 
pass  by  without  any  signs  of  approaching  publication, 
gently  hinted  to  him  that  the  book,  as  he  was  writing 
it,  would  only  be  finished  in  that  state  of  existence 
which  it  took  for  its  theme.  The  second  is  "  Orien- 
tal Religions,"  by  Samuel  Johnson,  the  product  of 
a  learned,  intelligent,  and  intrepid  "  Free  Religion- 
ist." The  third  is  "  Ten  Great  Religions,"  by  James 
Freeman  Clarke.  The  boldness  of  the  thinking  in 
these  works  is  as  noticeable  as  the  abundance  of  the 
knowledge. 

The  number  of  American  statesmen  who  since  1810 
have  combined  literary  with  political  talent  is  numer- 
ous,—  so  numerous,  indeed,  that  in  despair  of  doing 
justice  to  all,  we  are  forced  to  select  three  representa- 
tive men  as  indicating  three  separate  tendencies  in 
our  national  life.  These  are  John  C.  Calhoun,  Daniel 
Webster,  and  Charles  Sumner.  Calhoun  specially 
followed  the  Jefferson  who  prompted  the  Resolutions 
of  '98  ;  Sumner,  the  Jefferson  who  wrote  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  ;  Webster,  the  men  who  drew 
up  and  carried  into  effect  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Calhoun  was  in  politics  what  Calvin 
was  in  theology,  —  a  great  deductive  reasoner  from 
premises  assumed.  The  austerity  of  his  character 
found  a  natural  outlet  in  the  rigor  of  his  logic.  He 
had  the  grand  audacity  of  the  intellectual  athlete, 
pushed  his  argumentation  to  its  most  extreme  results, 


104  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

was  willing  to  peril  life  and  fortune  on  an  inference 
ten  times  removed  from  his  original  starting-point, 
and  was  always  a  reasoning  being  in  matters  where 
he  seemed  to  be,  on  practical  grounds,  an  unreason- 
able one.  Despising  rhetoric,  he  became  a  rhetorician 
of  a  high  class  by  pure  force  of  logical  statement. 
Every  word  he  used  meant  something,  and  he  never 
indulged  in  an  image  or  illustration  except  to  con- 
dense or  enforce  a  thought.  In  the  discussions  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  regarding  the  very 
foundations  of  the  government,  raised  by  what  is 
called  "  Foote's  Resolution,"  Webster  in  1830  made 
his  celebrated  speech  in  reply  to  Hayne.  In  all  the 
resources  of  the  orator  —  statement,  reasoning,  wit, 
humor,  imagination,  passion  —  this  speech  has,  like 
one  of  the  masterpieces  of  Burke,  acquired  reputation 
as  a  literary  work,  as  well  as  by  its  lucid  exposition 
of  constitutional  law.  Webster  was  so  completely 
victorious  over  his  antagonist  in  argument  as  well  as 
eloquence,  that  only  when  the  question  of  nullification 
came  up  was  his  triumph  seriously  questioned.  Cal- 
houn,  who  thought  that  Hayne  had  not  made  the  most 
of  the  argument  for  State  rights,  introduced  in  Jan- 
uary, 1833,  a  series  of  resolutions  into  the  Senate, 
carefully  modelled  on  the  Resolutions  of '98,  and  after- 
ward based  an  argument  upon  them  as  though  they 
were  of  a  validity  equal  to  that  of  the  Constitution 
itself.  The  speech  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
efforts  of  his  ingenious,  penetrating,  and  logical  mind, 
and  can  now  be  studied  with  admiration  by  everybody 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  105 

who  enjoys  following  the  processes  of  impassioned 
deductive  reasoning  on  a  question  affecting  the  life  of 
individuals  and  of  States. 

Webster's  reply,  called  "  The  Constitution  not  a 
Compact  between  Sovereign  States,"  was  his  greatest 
intellectual  effort  in  the  sphere  of  pure  argumentation. 
Calhoun,  a  greater  reasoner  than  Jefferson  or  Madi- 
son, had  deduced  from  their  propositions  —  originally 
thrown  out  to  serve  as  a  convenient  cover  for  a  some- 
what factious  opposition  to  the  administration  of  John 
Adams  —  a  theory  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  for  all  time  to  come.  Webster  resolutely  at- 
tacked the  premises  of  Calhoun's  speech,  and  paid 
little  attention  to  his  opponent's  deductive  reasoning 
from  the  premises.  Calhoun  retorted  in  a  speech  in 
which  he  complained  that  Webster  had  not  answered 
his  argument.  It  was  not  Webster's  policy  to  discredit 
Madison,  and  he  simply  declared  that  Madison,  in  his 
old  age,  had  repudiated  such  inferences  as  Calhoun 
had  drawn  from  the  Resolutions  of  '98.  On  constitu- 
tional grounds  Webster  was  as  triumphant  in  his  con- 
test with  Calhoun  as  he  had  been  in  his  previous 
contest  with  Hayne ;  but  arguments  are  of  small 
account  against  interests  and  passions,  and  it  required 
the  bloodiest  and  most  expensive  of  civil  wars  to 
prove  that  strictly  logical  deductions  from  the  Reso- 
lutions of  '98  did  not  express  the  meaning  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  victory  intel- 
lectually won  was  eventually  decided  by  "  blood  and 
iron."  In  addition  to  Webster's  extraordinary  power 


106  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

of  lucid  statement,  on  which  he  based  the  successive 
steps  and  wide  sweep  of  his  argumentation,  he  was 
master  of  an  eloquence  unrivalled  of  its  kind,  because 
it  represented  the  kindling  into  unity  of  all  the  facul- 
ties and  emotions  of  a  strong,  deep,  and  broad  indi- 
vidual nature.  Generally,  understanding  was  his 
predominant  quality  ;  in  statement  and  argument  he 
seemed  to  be  specially  desirous  to  unite  thought  with 
facts ;  he  distrusted  all  rhetoric  which  disturbed  the 
relations  of  things ;  but  in  the  heat  of  controversy  he 
occasionally  mounted  to  the  real  elevation  of  his  char- 
acter, and  threw  off  flashes  and  sparks  of  impassioned 
imagination  which  had  the  electric,  the  smiting  effect 
of  a  completely  roused  nature.  It  is  curious  that  he 
never  exhibited  the  higher  qualities  of  imagination  in 
his  speeches  until  the  suppressed  power  flamed  unex- 
pectedly out  after  all  his  other  faculties  had  been 
thoroughly  kindled,  and  then  it  came  with  formidable 
effect.  That  Webster  is  one  of  the  most  eminent  of 
our  prose  writers  is  acknowledged  both  at  the  North 
and  the  South.  He  was  also  a  magnificent  specimen 
of  physical  manhood  ;  his  mere  presence  in  an  assem- 
bly was  eloquence ;  and  when  he  spoke,  voice  and 
gesture  added  immensely  to  the  effect  of  his  majestic 
port  and  bearing.  Fox  said  of  Lord  Chancellor  Thur- 
low  that  he  must  be  an  impostor,  for  no  man  could  be 
as  wise  as  he  looked.  Webster  was  wiser  in  look 
than  even  Thurlow,  but  his  works  show  that  he  was 
no  impostor  in  the  matter  of  political  wisdom,  laugh- 
able as  are  some  of  the  epithets  by  which  his  admirers 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  107 

exaggerated  his  claims  to  reverence,  as  though  he  had 
clapped  copyright  on  political  thought.  In  the  hea- 
thenism of  partisan  feeling,  however,  few  deities  of 
party  were  more  worthy  of  apotheosis  than  "  the  god- 
like Dan ! " 

Up  to  1850,  when  he  made  his  memorable  "  7th  of 
March  speech  "  in  the  Senate,  Webster  was  considered 
the  leading  champion  of  the  non-extension  of  slavery ; 
but  in  that  speech  he  waived  the  application  of  the 
principle  to  the  Territories  acquired  by  the  Mexican 
war,  though  he  contended  that  he  still  adhered  to  the 
principle  itself.  He  lost  by  this  concession  his  hold 
on  the  minds  and  consciences  of  the  political  anti- 
slavery  men,  and  the  position  he  vacated  was  event- 
ually occupied  by  Charles  Sumner,  though  Sumner 
had  numerous  competitors  for  that  station  of  glory 
and  difficulty.  Webster  must  have  foreseen  the  in- 
evitable conflict  between  the  Slave  and  Free  States, 
but  he  labored  to  postpone  a  catastrophe  he  was 
powerless  to  prevent,  thinking  that  judicious  com- 
promise might  soften  the  shock  when  the  collision  of 
irreconcilable  principles  and  persons  could  no  longer 
be  avoided.  Sumner  in  heart  was  as  earnest  an  Aboli- 
tionist as  Garrison  or  Phillips  ;  his  soul  was  on  fire 
with  moral  enthusiasm  ;  but  he  also  had  a  vigorous 
understanding,  and  a  memory  stored  with  a  vast 
amount  of  historical  and  legal  knowledge.  He  never 
forgot  anything  he  had  read,  and  he  passed  not  a  day 
without  reading.  Accordingly,  when  he  entered  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  this  philanthropic  stu- 


108  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

dent-statesman  was  as  ready  in  citing  the  precedents 
as  he  was  fiery  in  declaring  the  principles  of  freedom. 
During  the  years  preceding  the  Civil  War  the  dominant 
party  in  the  government  was  bent  on  establishing  a 
slave-power,  which,  had  it  succeeded,  would  have  dis- 
graced the  country  forever.  Law,  logic,  philosophy, 
even  theology,  were  in  the  South  all  subordinated  to 
the  permanence  and  extension  of  negro  slavery,  and 
hundreds  of  sermons  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  inculcated  the  refreshing  doctrine  that  if  Christ 
came  primarily  on  earth  to  save  sinners,  his  secon- 
dary, though  not  less  important,  object  was  to  en- 
slave "  niggers."  It  is  easy  to  say  that  it  requires 
no  parade  of  authorities  to  settle  the  proposition  that 
two  and  two  make  four,  but  ethically  and  politically 
this  was  the  proposition  that  Charles  Sumner  had  to 
sustain  by  quotations  from  Yico  and  Leibnitz,  from 
Coke,  Mansfield,  Camden,  and  Eldon,  from  Adams, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Marshall,  Story,  and  Webster. 
Those  who  were  foiled  in  their  purposes  by  these  quo- 
tations from  authorities  they  could  not  but  respect 
called  him  a  pedant ;  but  what  really  vexed  them  was 
that  in  no  case  in  which  this  pedant  encountered  an 
opponent  did  he  fail  to  justify  his  course  by  the  ex- 
tent of  his  knowledge,  as  well  as  by  the  keenness  of 
his  intellect  and  the  warmth  of  his  sentiments.  When 
the  Civil  War  broke  out,  he  saw  that  negro  slavery 
was  doomed.  In  his  endeavors  to  hasten  emancipa- 
tion he  always  contrived  to  make  himself  unaccept- 
able to  the  more  prudent  statesmen  of  his  own  party, 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  109 

by  inaugurating  measures  which  the  course  of  events 
eventually  compelled  them  to  adopt;  and  after  the 
war  he  dragged  the  Republican  party  up  to  his  own 
policy  of  reconstruction,  being  in  most  cases  only 
some  six  or  twelve  months  ahead  of  what  sober  and 
judicious  Republicans  found  at  length  to  be  the  wisest 
course.  Throughout  his  career  Sumner  was  felt  as  a 
force  as  well  as  an  intelligence,  and  probably  the 
future  historian  will  rank  him  high  among  the  select 
class  of  American  public  men  who  have  the  right  to 
be  called  creative  statesmen.  He  always  courted 
obloquy,  not  only  when  his  party  was  depressed,  but 
when  it  was  triumphant.  "  Forward  !  "  was  ever  his 
motto.  When  his  political  friends  thought  they  had 
at  last  found  a  resting-place,  his  voice  was  heard  cry- 
ing loudly  for  a  new  advance.  Many  of  his  addresses 
belong  to  that  class  of  speeches  which  are  events. 
His  collected  works,  carefully  revised  by  himself, 
have  now  become  a  portion  of  American  literature. 
They  quicken  the  conscience  of  the  reader,  but  they 
also  teach  him  the  lesson  that  moral  sentiment  is  of 
comparatively  small  account  unless  it  hardens  into 
moral  character,  and  is  also  accompanied  by  that 
thirst  for  knowledge  by  which  intellect  is  broadened 
and  enriched,  and  is  trained  to  the  task  of  supporting 
by  facts  and  arguments  what  the  insight  of  moral 
manliness  intuitively  discerns.  Probably  no  states- 
man that  the  country  has  produced  has  exceeded 
Sumner  in  his  passion  for  rectitude.  In  every  matter 
that  came  up  for  discussion  he  vehemently  put  the 


110  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

question,  "  Which  of  the  two  sides  is  Right  ?"  He  so 
persistently  capitalized  this  tremendous  monosyllable, 
and  poured  into  its  utterance  such  an  amount  of  moral 
fervor  or  moral  wrath,  that  the  modest  word,  which 
everybody  used  without  much  regard  to  its  meaning, 
blazed  out  in  his  rhetoric,  not  as  a  feeble  and  faded 
truism,  but  as  a  dazzling  and  smiting  truth. 

A  word  may  be  said  here  of  two  public  men,  one  of 
whom  belongs  to  literature  by  cultivation  and  of  set 
purpose,  the  other  accidentally  and  in  the  ordinary 
discharge  of  his  public  duties.  Edward  Everett  was 
one  of  the  most  variously  accomplished  of  the  Ameri- 
can scholars  who  have  been  drawn  into  public  life  by 
ambition  and  patriotism.  Though  he  attained  high 
positions,  his  nature  was  too  sensitive  and  fastidious 
for  the  rough  contentions  of  party,  and  he  could  not 
steel  himself  to  bear  calumny  without  wincing.  He 
suffered  exquisite  mortification  and  pain  at  unjust 
attacks  on  his  principles  and  character,  whereas  such 
attacks  awakened  in  Sumner  a  kind  of  exultation,  as 
they  proved  that  his  own  blows  were  beginning  to 
tell.  As  an  orator,  Everett's  special  gift  was  persua- 
sion, not  invective.  The  four  volumes  of  his  collected 
works  are,  in  elegance  and  energy  of  style,  wealth  of 
information,  and  fertility  of  thought,  important  con- 
tributions to  American  literature  ;  but  being  mostly 
in  the  form  of  speeches  and  addresses,  they  have  not 
produced  the  impression  which  less  learning,  talent, 
and  eloquence,  concentrated  on  a  few  subjects,  would 
assuredly  have  made.  A  very  different  man  was 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  Ill 

Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  a  great  rhetorician  with- 
out knowing  it.  The  statesman  was  doubtless  as- 
tonished that  messages  and  letters,  written  for  purely 
practical  purposes,  should  be  hailed  by  fastidious 
critics  as  remarkable  specimens  of  style.  The  truth 
was  that  Lincoln  was  deficient  in  fluency  ;  he  was 
compelled  to  wring  his  expression  out  of  the  very 
substance  of  his  nature  and  the  inmost  life  of  the 
matter  he  had  in  hand ;  and  the  result  was  seen  in 
sinewy  sentences,  in  which  thoughts  were  close  to 
things,  and  words  were  close  to  thoughts.  And 
finally,  in  November,  1863,  his  soul  devoutly  im- 
pressed with  the  solemnity  and  grandeur  of  his 
theme,  he  delivered  at  Gettysburg  an  address  of  about 
twenty  lines,  which  is  considered  the  top  and  crown 
of  American  eloquence. 

There  are  certain  writers  in  American  literature 
who  charm  by  their  eccentricity  as  well  as  by  their 
genius,  who  are  both  original  and  originals.  The 
most  eminent,  perhaps,  of  these  was  Henry  D.  Tho- 
reau  —  a  man  who  may  be  said  to  have  penetrated 
nearer  to  the  physical  heart  of  Nature  than  any  other 
American  author.  Indeed,  he  "  experienced  "  nature 
as  others  are  said  to  experience  religion.  Lowell 
says  that  in  reading  him  it  seems  as  "  if  all  out-doors 
had  kept  a  diary,  and  become  its  own  Montaigne." 
He  was  so  completely  a  naturalist  that  the  inhabitants 
of  the  woods  in  which  he  sojourned  forgot  their  well- 
founded  distrust  of  man,  and  voted  him  the  freedom 
of  their  city.  His  descriptions  excel  even  those  of 


112  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Wilson,  Audubon,  arid  Wilson  Flagg,  admirable  as 
these  are,  for  he  was  in  closer  relations  with  the 
birds  than  they,  and  carried  no  gun  in  his  hand.  In 
respect  to  human  society,  he  pushed  his  individu- 
ality to  individualism  ;  he  was  never  happier  than 
when  absent  from  the  abodes  of  civilization,  and  the 
toleration  he  would  not  extend  to  a  Webster  or  a 
Calhoun  he  extended  freely  to  a  robin  or  a  wood- 
chuck.  With  all  this  peculiarity,  he  was  a  poet,  a 
scholar,  a  humorist,  —  also,  in  his  way,  a  philosopher 
and  philanthropist ;  and  those  who  knew  him  best, 
and  entered  most  thoroughly  into  the  spirit  of  his 
character  and  writings,  are  the  warmest  of  all  the 
admirers  of  his  genius.  Another  Concord  hermit  is 
W.  E.  Channing,  who  has  adopted  solitude  as  a  pro- 
fession, and  seclusion  from  his  kind  as  the  condition 
of  independent  perception  of  nature.  The  thin  vol- 
ume of  poems  in  which  he  has  embodied  his  insights 
and  experiences  contains  lines  and  verses  which  are 
remarkable  both  for  their  novelty  and  depth.  A 
serener  eccentric,  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  is  eccentric 
only  in  this,  —  that  he  thinks  the  object  of  life  is 
spiritual  meditation ;  that  all  action  leads  up  to  this 
in  the  end  ;  and  he  has  spent  his  life  in  tranquilly 
exploring  those  hidden  or  elusive  facts  of  the  higher 
consciousness  which  practical  thinkers  overlook  or 
ignore.  He  is  a  Yankee  seer,  who  has  suppressed 
every  tendency  in  his  Yankee  nature  toward  "  argu- 
fying" a  point.  Very  different  from  all  these  is 
Walt  Whitman,  who  originally  burst  upon  the  lite- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  113 

rary  world  as  "  one  of  the  roughs,"  and  whose  "  bar- 
baric yawp  "  was  considered  by  a  particular  class  of 
English  critics  as  the  first  original  note  which  had 
been  struck  in  American  poetry,  and  as  good  as  an 
Indian  war-whoop.  Wordsworth  speaks  of  Chatter- 
ton  as  "  the  marvellous  boy ; "  Walt  Whitman,  in 
his  first  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  might  have  been  styled 
the  marvellous  "  b'hoy."  Walt  protested  against  all 
convention,  even  all  forms  of  conventional  verse  ;  he 
seemed  to  start  up  from  the  ground,  an  earth-born 
son  of  the  soil,  and  put  to  all  cultivated  people  the 
startling  question,  "  What  do  you  think  of  Me  ? " 
They  generally  thought  highly  of  him  as  an  original. 
Nothing  is  more  acceptable  to  minds  jaded  with  read- 
ing works  of  culture  than  the  sudden  appearance  of 
a  strong,  rough  book,  expressing  the  habits,  ideas, 
and  ideals  of  the  uncultivated ;  but,  unfortunately, 
Whitman  declined  to  listen  to  the  suggestion  that  his 
daring  disregard  of  convention  should  have  one  ex- 
ception, and  that  he  must  modify  his  frank  expression 
of  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  The  author  refused, 
and  the  completed  edition  of  the  "  Leaves  of  Grass  " 
fell  dead  from  the  press.  Since  that  period  he  has 
undergone  new  experiences ;  his  latest  books  are  not 
open  to  objections  urged  against  his  earliest;  but 
still  the  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  if  thoroughly  cleaned, 
would  even  now  be  considered  his  ablest  and  most 
original  work.  But  when  the  first  astonishment  sub- 
sides of  such  an  innovation  as  Walt  Whitman's,  the 
innovator  pays  the  penalty  of  undue  admiration  fc» 

8 


114  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

unjust  neglect.  This  is  true  also  of  Joaquin  Miller, 
Whose  first  poems  seemed  to  threaten  all  our  estab- 
lished reputations.  Each  succeeding  volume  was 
more  coldly  received  ;  and  though  the  energy  and 
glow  of  his  verse  were  the  same,  the  public,  in  its 
calmer  mood,  found  that  the  richness  of  the  matter 
was  not  up  to  the  rush  of  the  inspiration. 

This  eccentric  deviation  from  accredited  models  is 
perhaps  best  indicated  in  American  humorists,  whose 
characteristic  is  ludicrous  absurdity.  George  H.  Derby 
(or  John  Phoenix)  was  perhaps  the  first  who  carried 
the  hyperboles  of  humor  to  the  height  of  'humoristic 
extravaganzas.  The  peculiarity  of  the  whole  school 
is  to  revel  in  the  most  fantastic  absurdities  of  an  in- 
genious fancy.  There  is  a  Western  story  told  of  a 
man  who  was  so  strong  that  his  shadow  once  falling 
on  a  child  instantly  killed  it.  This  is  the  kind  of 
humor  in  which  Americans  excel.  Charles  F.  Brown 
(Artemas  Ward),  indulging  at  his  will  in  the  oddest 
and  wildest  caricatures,  still  contrived  to  make  his 
showman  an  original  character,  and  to  stamp  on  the 
popular  imagination  an  image  of  the  man,  as  well  as 
to  tickle  the  risibilities  of  the  public  by  his  sayings 
and  doings.  Perhaps  the  most  delicious  among  his 
many  delicious  absurdities  was  his  grave  statement 
that  it  had  been  better  than  ten  dollars  in  Jeff  Davis's 
pocket  "  if  he  'd  never  been  born."  S.  L.  Clemens 
(Mark  Twain),  the  most  widely  popular  of  this  class 
of  humorists,  is  a  man  of  wide  experience,  keen  intel- 
lect and  literary  culture.  The  serious  portions  of 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  115 

his  writings  indicate  that  he  could  win  a  reputation 
in  literature  even  if  he  had  not  been  blessed  with  a 
humorous  fancy  inexhaustible  in  resource.  He  strikes 
his  most  effective  satirical  blows  by  an  assumption 
of  helpless  innocence  and  bewildered  forlornness  of 
mind.  The  reader  or  the  audience  is  in  convulsions 
of  laughter,  while  he  preserves  an  imperturbable  se- 
renity of  countenance,  as  if  wondering  why  his  state- 
ment is  not  received  as  an  important  contribution  to 
human  knowledge.  Occasionally  he  indulges  in  a 
sly  and  subtle  stroke  of  humor,  worthy  of  the  great 
masters,  and  indicating  that  his  extravagancies  are 
not  the  limit  of  his  humorous  faculty.  D.  R.  Locke 
(Petroleum  V.  Nasby)  is  not  only  a  humorist,  but  he 
was  a  great  force  in  carrying  the  reconstruction  meas- 
ures of  the  Republican  party  after  the  war,  by  his 
laughable  but  coarse,  broad,  and  merciless  pictures 
of  the  lowest  elements  in  the  Western  States  that 
had  been  opposed  to  the  policy  of  equal  justice. 
Charles  Gr.  Leland,  an  accomplished  man  of  letters, 
the  best  translator  of  the  most  difficult  pieces  of 
Heine,  has  won  a  large  reputation  by  his  "  Hans 
Breitmann  Ballads,"  Hans  being  a  lyrist  who  sings 
seemingly  from  the  accumulated  inspiration  drawn 
from  tuns  of  lager  beer.  B.  P.  Shillaber,  not  so  prom- 
inent as  others  we  have  named,  has  given  a  new  life 
to  Mrs.  Partington,  and  has  added  Ike  to  the  family. 
While  he  participates  in  the  extravagance  of  the 
popular  American  humorists,  he  has  a  demure  hu- 
mane humor  of  his  own  which  is  quite  charming. 


116  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Among  those  authors  who  combine  humor  with 
a  variety  of  other  gifts,  the  most  conspicuous  is 
F.  Bret  Harte.  His  subtilty  of  ethical  insight,  his 
depth  of  sentiment,  his  power  of  solid  characteriza- 
tion, and  his  pathetic  and  tragic  force  are  as  evident 
as  his  broad  perception  of  the  ludicrous  side  of  things. 
In  his  California  stories,  as  in  some  of  his  poems,  he 
detects  "  the  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,"  and 
represents  the  exact  circumstances  in  which  ruffians 
and  profligates  are  compelled  to  feel  that  they  have 
human  hearts  and  spiritual  natures.  He  is  original 
not  only  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but  in 
the  sense  of  discovering  a  new  domain  of  literature, 
and  of  colonizing  it  by  the  creations  of  his  own  brain. 
Perhaps  the  immense  popularity  of  some  of  his  hu- 
morous poems,  such  as  "  The  Heathen  Chinee,'7  has 
not  been  favorable  to  a  full  recognition  of  his  graver 
qualities  of  heart  and  imagination. 

John  Hay  is,  like  Bret  Harte,  a  humorist,  and  his 
contributions,  in  "  Pike  County  Ballads,"  to  what 
may  be  called  the  poetry  of  ruffianism,  if  less  subtile 
in  sentiment  and  characterization  than  those  of  his 
model,  have  a  rough  raciness  and  genuine  manliness 
peculiarly  his  own.  His  delightful  volume  called 
"  Castilian  Days,"  displaying  all  the  graces  of  style 
of  an  accomplished  man  of  letters,  shows  that  it  was 
by  a  strong  effort  of  imagination  that  he  became  for 
a  time  a  mental  denizen  of  Pike  County,  and  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Jim  Bludso  and  other  worthies 
of  that  kind. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  117 

The  writings  of  William  D.  Ho  wells  are  master- 
pieces of  literary  workmanship,  resembling  the  prod- 
ucts of  those  cunning  artificers  who  add  one  or  two 
thousand  per  cent  to  the  value  of  their  raw  material 
by  their  incomparable  way  of  working  it  up.  What 
they  are  as  artisans,  he  is  as  artist.  His  faculties 
and  emotions  are  in  exquisite  harmony  with  each 
other,  and  unite  to  produce  one  effect  of  beauty  and 
grace  in  the  singular  felicity  of  his  style.  He  has 
humor  in  abundance,  but  it  is  thoroughly  blended  with 
his  observation,  fancy,  imagination,  and  good  sense. 
He  has  revived  in  some  degree  the  lost  art  of  Addi- 
son,  Goldsmith,  and  Irving.  Nobody  ever  "  roared  " 
with  laughter  in  reading  anything  he  ever  wrote; 
but  few  of  our  American  humorists  have  excelled  him 
in  the  power  to  unseal,  as  by  a  magic  touch,  those 
secret  interior  springs  of  merriment  which  generally 
solace  the  soul  without  betraying  the  happiness  of  the 
mood  they  create  by  any  exterior  bursts  of  laughter. 
His  "  Venetian  Life,"  "  Italian  Journeys,"  "  Suburban 
Sketches,"  — his  novels,  entitled  "  Our  Wedding  Jour- 
ney," "  A  Chance  Acquaintance,"  and  "  A  Foregone 
Conclusion." — all  indicate  the  presence  of  this  delic- 
ious humorous  element,  penetrating  his  picturesque 
descriptions  of  scenery,  as  well  as  his  refined  percep- 
tions of  character  and  pleasing  narratives  of  incidents. 

Charles  Dudley  Warner,  like  Howells,  is  an  author 
whose  humor  is  intermixed  with  his  sentiment,  under- 
standing, and  fancy.  In  "  My  Summer  in  a  Garden," 
"  Back-log  Studies,"  and  other  volumes,  he  exhibits  a 


118  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

reflective  intellect  under  the  guise  of  a  comically  se- 
date humor.  Trifles  are  exalted  into  importance  by 
the  incessant  play  of  his  meditative  facetiousness. 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  first  won  his  reputation  as 
a  poet.  In  the  exquisite  ballad  of  "  Babie  Bell,"  and 
in  other  poems,  he  has,  as  it  were,  so  dissolved  thought 
and  feeling  in  melody  that  rhyme  and  rhythm  seem 
to  be  necessary  and  not  selected  forms  of  expression. 
As  a  prose  writer  he  combines  pungency  with  elegance 
of  style,  and  in  his  stories  has  exhibited  a  sly  original 
vein  of  humor,  which,  while  it  steals  out  in  separate 
sentences,  is  most  effectively  manifested  in  the  ludi- 
crous shock  of  surprise  which  the  reader  experiences 
when  he  comes  to  the  catastrophe  of  the  plot.  In 
this  respect  "  Marjorie  Daw  "  is  one  of  the  best  prose 
tales  in  our  literature. 

Among  the  American  novelists  who  have  risen  into 
prominence  during  the  past  thirty  years,  the  greatest, 
though  not  the  most  popular,  is  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
His  first  romance,  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  did  not  ap- 
pear until  the  year  1850,  but  previously  he  had  pub- 
lished collections  of  short  stories  under  the  titles  of 
"  Twice-told  Tales  "  and  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse." 
These  were  recognized  by  judicious  readers  all  over 
the  country  as  masterpieces  of  literary  art,  but  their 
circulation  was  ludicrously  disproportioned  to  their 
merit.  For  years  one  of  the  greatest  modern  masters 
of  English  prose  was  valued  at  his  true  worth  only  by 
those  who  had  found  by  experience  in  composition 
how  hard  it  is  to  be  clear  and  simple  in  style,  and  at 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  119 

the  same  time  to  be  profound  in  sentiment,  exact  in 
thought,  and  fertile  in  imagination.  Most  of  these 
short  stories  contain  the  germs  of  romances,  and  a 
literary  economist  of  his  materials,  like  Scott  or 
Dickens,  would  have  expanded  Hawthorne's  hints  of 
passion  and  character  into  thrilling  novels.  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter,"  the  romance  by  which  Hawthorne 
first  forced  himself  on  the  popular  mind  as  a  genius 
of  the  first  class,  was  but  the  expansion  of  an  idea 
expressed  in  three  sentences,  written  twenty  years 
before  its  appearance,  in  the  little  sketch  of  "  Endicott 
and  the  Cross,"  which  is  included  in  the  collection  of 
"  Twice-told  Tales."  But  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  ex- 
hibited in  startling  distinctness  all  the  resources  of 
his  peculiar  mind,  and  even  more  than  Scott's  "  Bride 
of  Lammermoor"  it  touches  the  lowest  depths  of 
tragic  woe  and  passion  —  so  deep,  indeed,  that  the 
representation  becomes  at  times  almost  ghastly.  If 
Jonathan  Edwards,  turned  romancer,  had  dramatized 
his  sermon  on  "  Sinners  in  the  Hand  of  an  Angry 
God,"  he  could  not  have  written  a  more  terrific  story 
of  guilt  and  retribution  than  "  The  Scarlet  Letter." 
The  pitiless  intellectual  analysis  of  the  emotions  of 
guilty  souls  is  pushed  so  far  that  the  reader,  after 
being  compelled  to  sympathize  with  the  Puritanic 
notion  of  Law,  sighs  for  some  appearance  of  the  con- 
soling Puritanic  doctrine  of  Grace.  Hawthorne,  in 
fact,  was  a  patient  observer  of  the  operation  of  spirit- 
ual laws,  and  relentless  in  recording  the  results  of  his 
observations.  Most  readers  of  romances  are  ravenous 


120  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

for  external  events;  they  demand  that  the  heroes 
and  heroines  shall  be  swift  in  thought,  confident  in 
decision,  rapid  in  act.  In  Hawthorne's  novels  the 
events  occur  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  his  char- 
acters, and  our  attention  is  fastened  on  the  ecstasies 
or  agonies  of  individual  souls  rather  than  on  outward 
acts  and  incidents ;  at  least,  the  latter  appear  trivial 
in  comparison  with  the  inward  mental  states  they  im- 
perfectly express.  Carlyle  says  that  real  genius  in 
characterization  consists  in  developing  character  from 
"  within  outward."  Hawthorne's  mental  sight  in  dis- 
cerning souls  is  marvellously  penetrating  and  accurate, 
but  he  finds  it  so  difficult  to  give  them  an  adequate 
physical  embodiment  that  their  very  flesh  is  spiritual- 
ized, and  appears  to  be  brought  into  the  representa- 
tion only  to  give  a  kind  of  phantasmal  form  to  purely 
mental  conceptions.  These  souls,  while  intensely 
realized  as  individuals,  are,  however,  mere  puppets 
in  the  play  of  the  spiritual  forces  and  laws  behind 
them,  and  while  seemingly  gifted  with  will,  even  to 
the  extent  of  indulging  in  all  the  caprices  of  wilful- 
ness,  they  drift  to  their  doom  with  the  certainty  of 
fate.  In  this  twofold  power  of  insight  into  souls,  and 
of  the  spiritual  laws  which  regulate  both  the  natural 
action  and  morbid  aberrations  of  souls,  Hawthorne  is 
so  incomparably  great  that  in  comparison  with  him 
all  other  romancers  of  the  century,  whether  German, 
French,  English,  or  American,  seem  to  be  superficial. 
The  defect  of  his  method  was  that  he  penetrated  to 
such  a  depth  into  the  human  heart,  and  recorded  so 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE.  121 

mercilessly  its  realities  and  possibilities  of  sin  and 
selfishness  as  they  appeared  to  his  piercing,  passion- 
less vision  of  the  movements  of  passion,  that  he  rather 
frightened  than  pleased  the  ordinary  novel-reader. 
The  old  woman  who  sagely  concluded  that  she  must 
be  sick,  because  in  reading  the  daily  newspaper  she 
did  not,  as  was  her  wont,  "  enjoy  her  murders,"  un- 
consciously hit  on  the  distinction  which  separates 
artistic  representations  of  human  life  which  include 
crime  and  misery  from  those  representations  in  which 
the  prominence  of  crime  and  misery  is  so  marked  as 
to  become  unpalatable.  Hawthorne  did  not  succeed 
in  making  his  psychological  pictures  of  sin  and  woe 
"  enjoyable."  The  intensity  of  impassioned  imagina- 
tion which  flames  through  every  page  of  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter  "  was  unrelieved  by  those  milder  accompani- 
ments which  should  have  been  brought  in  to  soften 
the  effect  of  a  tragedy  so  awful  in  itself.  Little  Pearl, 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  creations  of  imaginative 
genius,  is  introduced  not  to  console  her  parents,  but 
in  her  wild,  innocent  wilfulness  to  symbolize  their  sin, 
and  add  new  torments  to  the  slow-consuming  agonies 
of  remorse.  In  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables," 
"  The  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  «  The  Marble  Faun," 
Hawthorne  deepened  the  impression  made  by  his  pre- 
vious writings  that  he  did  not  possess  his  genius,  but 
was  possessed  by  it.  The  most  powerful  of  his  crea- 
tions of  character  were  inspired  not  by  his  sympathies, 
but  his  antipathies.  Personally  he  was  the  most 
gtintle  and  genial  and  humane  of  men.  He  detested 


122  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

many  of  the  characters  in  whose  delineation  he  exerted 
the  full  force  of  his  intellect  and  imagination ;  but  he 
was  so  mentally  conscientious  that  he  never  exercised 
the  right  of  the  novelist  to  kill  the  personages  who 
displeased  him  at  his  own  will  and  pleasure.  So  in- 
tensely did  he  realize  his  characters  that  to  run  his 
pen  through  them,  and  thus  blot  them  out  of  exist- 
ence, would  have  seemed  to  him  like  the  commission 
of  wilful  murder.  He  watched  and  noted  the  opera- 
tion of  spiritual  laws  on  the  malignant  or  feeble  souls 
he  portrayed,  but  never  interfered  personally  to  divert 
their  fatal  course.  In  thus  emphasizing  the  tragic 
element  in  Hawthorne's  genius,  we  may  have  too 
much  overlooked  his  deep  and  delicate  humor,  his  in- 
genuity of  playful  fancy,  his  felicity  in  making  a  land- 
scape visible  to  the  soul  as  well  as  the  eye  by  his 
charming  power  of  description,  and  the  throng  of 
thoughts  which  accompany  every  step  in  the  progress 
of  his  narrative.  Not  the  least  remarkable  character- 
istic of  this  remarkable  man  was  the  prevailing  sim- 
plicity, clearness,  sweetness,  purity,  and  vigor  of  his 
style,  even  when  his  subjects  might  have  justified  him 
in  deviating  into  some  form  of  Oarlylese. 

The  most  widely  circulated  novel  ever  published  in 
this  country,  or  perhaps  in  any  other,  is  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  The  book 
has  in  the  United  States  attained  a  sale  of  over  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  copies,  and  after  the  lapse 
of  twenty-four  years  the  demand  for  it  still  continues. 
It  has  been  translated  into  almost  every  known  Ian- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  123 

guage.  Inspired  by  the  insurrection  of  the  public  con- 
science against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  its  popularity 
has  survived  the  extinction  of  slavery  itself.  Its 
original  publication,  in  1852,  was  an  important  politi- 
cal event.  It  practically  overturned  the  arguments 
of  statesmen  and  decisions  of  jurists  by  an  irresistible 
appeal  to  the  heart  and  imagination  of  the  American 
people.  It  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  agencies  in 
building  up  the  Republican  party,  in  electing  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  the  Presidency,  and  in  raising  earnest  vol- 
unteers for  the  great  crusade  against  slavery.  This 
effect  was  produced  not  by  explosions  of  moral  wrath 
against  the  iniquity  it  assailed,  but  by  a  vivid  dramatic 
presentation  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  in  which  com- 
plete justice  was  done  equally  to  the  slave-holder  and 
the  slave.  And  the  humor,  the  pathos,  the  keen  ob- 
servation, the  power  of  characterization,  displayed  in 
the  novel,  were  all  penetrated  by  an  imagination  quick- 
ened into  activity  by  a  deep  and  humane  religious  sen- 
timent. Next  to  "Uncle  Tom,"  "The  Minister's 
Wooing "  is  the  best  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  novels.  Her 
"  Oldtown  Folks  "  and  "  Sam  Lawson's  Stories  "  are 
full  of  delightful  Yankee  humor. 

It  is  impossible  for  us  to  spare  the  space  for  even 
an  inadequate  notice  of  all  the  novelists  of  the  United 
States.  At  the  time  (1827)  Miss  Catherine  M.  Sedg- 
wick  published  "  Hope  Leslie "  she  easily  took  a 
prominent  position  in  our  literature,  in  virtue  not 
only  of  her  own  merits,  but  of  the  comparative  ab- 
sence of  competitors.  Since  then  there  has  appeared 


124  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

a  throng  of  writers  of  romantic  narratives,  and  the 
number  is  constantly  increasing.  We  are  compelled 
to  confine  our  remarks  to  a  few  of  the  representative 
novelists.  William  Ware  gained  a  just  reputation  by 
his  "Letters  from  Palmyra"  (1836).  The  style  is 
elegant,  the  story  attractive,  and  the  pictures  of  the 
court  of  Zenobia  are  represented  through  a  visionary 
medium  which  gives  to  the  representation  a  certain 
charming  poetic  remoteness.  Charles  Fenno  Hoff- 
man, a  poet  as  well  as  prose  writer,  whose  song  of 
"  Sparkling  and  Bright  "  has  probably  rung  over  the 
emptying  of  a  million  of  champagne  bottles,  was  a 
man  who  delighted  in  "  wild  scenes  in  forest  and 
prairie,"  and  whose  "  Greyslaer "  shows  the  energy 
of  his  nature,  as  well  as  the  brilliancy  of  his  intellect. 
R,.  B.  Kimball  is  noted  for  his  business  novels,  and 
his  heart-breaks  come  not  from  failures  in  love,  but 
from  failures  in  traffic.  Donald  G.  Mitchell,  in  his 
"  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,"  originated  a  new  style,  in 
which  a  certain  delightful  daintiness  of  sentiment 
was  combined  with  a  fertile  fancy  and  touches  ol 
humorous  good  sense.  Sylvester  Judd,  a  Unitarian 
clergyman,  went  into  the  great  lumber  region  of  Maine, 
and  came  out  of  it  to  record  his  observations,  experi- 
ences, and  insights  in  the  novel  of  "  Margaret,"  which 
Lowell  once  affirmed  to  be  the  most  intensely  Ameri- 
can book  ever  written.  Thomas  W.  Higginson,  distin- 
guished in  many  departments  of  literature  for  the 
thoroughness  of  his  culture  and  the  classic  simplicity 
and  elegance  of  his  style,  is  the  author  of  a  novel  called 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  125 

"  Malbone,"  quite  notable  for  beauty  of  description,  in- 
genuity of  plot,  and  subtilty  of  characterization.  Her- 
man Melville,  after  astonishing  the  public  with  a  rapid 
succession  of  original  novels,  the  scene  of  which  was 
placed  in  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  suddenly  dropped 
his  pen,  as  if  in  disgust  of  his  vocation.  Mrs.  Harriet 
Prescott  Spofford  is  the  author  of  many  thrilling 
stories,  written  in  a  style  of  perhaps  exaggerated 
splendor,  but  in  which  prose  is  flushed  with  all  the 
hues  of  poetry.  Maria  S.  Cummins  published  in 
1854  a  novel  called  "The  Lamplighter,"  which  at- 
tained an  extraordinary  popularity,  owing  to  the  sim- 
plicity, tenderness,  pathos,  and  naturalness  of  the 
first  hundred  pages.  Seventy  thousand  copies  were 
sold  in  a  year.  Miss  E.  S.  Phelps,  in  her  "  Gates 
Ajar,"  "  Hedged  In,"  and  in  a  variety  of  minor  tales, 
has  exhibited  a  power  of  intense  pathos  which  al- 
most pains  the  reader  it  melts.  Henry  James,  Jr.  — 
long  may  it  be  before  the  "  Jr."  is  detached  from  his 
name  !  —  has  a  deep  and  delicate  perception  of  the 
internal  states  of  exceptional  individuals,  and  a  quiet 
mastery  of  the  resources  of  style,  which  make  his 
stories  studies*  in  psychology  as  well  as  models  of 
narrative  art.  J.  W.  De  Forest,  the  author  of  "  Kate 
Beaumont "  and  other  novels,  is  a  thorough  realist, 
whose  characterization,  animated  narrative,  well-con- 
trived plots,  and  pitiless  satire  only  want  the  relief  of 
ideal  sentiment  to  make  them  as  pleasing  as  they  are 
powerful.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  the  author  of  "  The 
Man  without  a  Country,"  "  My  Double,  and  How  He 


126  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Undid  Me,"  and  "  Sybaris  and  Other  Homes,"  is  fan~ 
tastically  ingenious  in  the  plan  and  form  of  his  narra- 
tives, but  he  uses  his  ingenuity  in  the  service  of  good 
sense  and  sound  feeling,  while  he  inspires  it  with  the 
impulses  of  a  hopeful,  vigorous,  and  elastic  spirit. 
Miss  Louisa  M.  Alcott,  in  her  "  Little  Women  "  and 
"  Little  Men,"  has  almost  revolutionized  juvenile 
literature  by  the  audacity  of  her  innovations.  She 
thoroughly  understands  that  peculiar  element  in  prac- 
tical youthful  character  which  makes  romps  of  so 
many  girls  and  "roughs"  of  so  many  boys.  Real 
little  women  and  real  little  men  look  into  her  stories 
as  into  mirrors  in  order  to  get  an  accurate  reflection 
of  their  inward  selves.  She  has  also  a  tart,  quaint, 
racy,  witty  good  sense,  which  acts  on  the  mind  like 
a  tonic.  Her  success  has  been  as  great  as  her  rejec- 
tion of  conventionality  in  depicting  lads  and  lasses 
deserved.  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  has  more  senti- 
ment and  a  softer  manner  of  representation  than 
Miss  Alcott ;  but  she  has  originality,  though  of  a 
different  kind ;  and  her  books,  like  those  of  Miss 
Alcott,  have  penetrated  into  households  in  every  part 
of  the  country,  and  their  characters  have  been  domes- 
ticated at  thousands  of  firesides.  Faith  Gartney,  es- 
pecially, is  a  real  friend  and  acquaintance  to  many  a 
girl  who  has  no  other.  William  G.  Simms,  the  most 
prolific  of  American  historical  novelists,  and  in  tire- 
less intellectual  energy  worthy  of  all  respect,  failed  to 
keep  his  hold  on  the  popular  mind  by  the  absence 
in  his  vividly  described  scenes  of  adventure  of  that 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  127 

peculiar  something  which  gives  to  such  scenes  a  per- 
manent charm.  Theodore  Winthrop,  the  author  of 
"  Cecil  Dreeme,"  "  John  Brent,"  and  other  striking 
and  admirable  tales,  rose  suddenly  into  popularity, 
and  as  suddenly  declined  —  a  conspicuous  instance  of 
the  instability  of  the  romancer's  reputation.  J.  G. 
Holland  has  succeeded  in  everything  he  has  under- 
taken, whether  as  a  sort  of  lay  preacher  to  the  young, 
as  an  essayist,  as  a  novelist,  or  as  a  poet.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  take  up  any  late  edition  of  any  one 
of  his  numerous  volumes  without  finding  "  fortieth 
thousand  "  or  "  sixtieth  thousand  "  smiling  compla- 
cently and  benignly  upon  you  from  the  titlepage. 
Mrs.  Mary  J.  Holmes,  the  author  of  "  Lena  Rivers," 
Mrs.  Terhune  (Marian  Harland),  the  author  of 
"  Hidden  Path,"  Mrs.  Augusta  Evans  Wilson,  the 
author  of  "  St.  Elmo,"  are  novelists  very  different 
from  Dr.  Holland,  yet  whose  works  have  obtained  a 
circulation  corresponding  in  extent.  We  pause  here 
in  reading  the  list,  not  for  want  of  subjects,  but  for 
want  of  space,  and  also,  it  must  be  confessed,  for 
want  of  epithets. 

It  is  a  great  misfortune  that  the  temptation  which 
besets  clever  people  to  write  mediocre  verses,  and 
afterward  to  collect  them  in  a  volume,  is  irresistible. 
Time,  and  short  time  at  that,  proves  the  truth  of  Mr. 
Jonathan  Oldbuck's  remark,  that  "  your  fugitive 
poetry  is  apt  to  become  stationary  with  the  pub- 
lisher." Even  when  a  little  momentary  reputation  is 
acquired,  the  writers  are  soon  compelled  to  repeat 


128  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

mournfully  the  refrain  of  Pierpont's  beautiful  and 
pathetic  poem,  "  Passing  away  !  passing  away  !  "  It 
is  not  one  of  the  least  mysteries  of  this  mismanage- 
ment of  talent  that  the  want  of  public  recognition 
does  not  appease  the  desire  to  attain  it.  As  a  general 
rule,  books  of  verses,  even  good  verses,  are  the  most 
unsalable  of  human  products.  There  are  numerous 
cases  where  genuine  poetic  faculty  and  inspiration 
fail  to  make  the  slightest  impression  on  the  public 
imagination.  The  most  remarkable  instance  of  this 
kind  in  our  literature  is  found  in  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Maria  Brooks  (Maria  del  Occidente),  who  printed 
some  forty  years  ago  a  poem  called  "  Zophiel ;  or,  The 
Bride  of  Seven,"  which  Southey  warmly  praised,  which 
was  honored  with  a  notice  in  the  "  London  Quarterly 
Review,"  which  deserved  most  of  the  eulogy  it  re- 
ceived, which  fell  dead  from  the  press,  and  which  not 
ten  living  Americans  have  ever  read.  Again,  some 
of  the  most  popular  and  most  quoted  poems  in  our 
literature  are  purely  accidental  hits,  and  their  authors 
are  rather  nettled  than  pleased  that  their  other  pro- 
ductions should  be  neglected  while  such  prominence 
is  given  to  one.  Thus  it  might  be  somewhat  danger- 
ous now  to  compliment  T.  W.  Parsons  for  his  "  Lines 
on  a  Bust  of  Dante,"  because  he  has  become  sick  of 
praise  confined  to  that  piece,  while  the  delicate  beauty 
of  scores  of  his  other  poems  and  his  noble  rhymed 
translation  of  Dante's  "  Inferno  "  find  few  readers. 
Miss  Lucy  Larcom,  when  she  pictured  "  Hannah 
Binding  Shoes,"  did  not  dream  that  Hannah  was  to 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  129 

draw  away  attention  from  her  other  heroines,  and 
concentrate  it  upon  herself.  Freneau's  "  Indian  Bury- 
ing-Ground  "  is  the  only  piece  of  that  poet  which  sur- 
vives. "  The  Gray  Forest  Eagle  "  of  A.  B.  Street  has 
screamed  away  attention  from  his  "  rippling  of  waters 
and  waving  of  trees  "  —  from  his  hundreds  of  pages 
of  descriptive  verse  which  are  almost  photographs  of 
natural  scenery.  People  quote  the  "  Summer  in  the 
Heart "  and  "  A  Life  on  the  Ocean  Wave  "  of  Epes 
Sargent,  and  overlook  many  better  specimens  of  his 
melody  and  his  imagination.  There  are  some  poems 
which  almost  everybody  has  read,  which  are  com- 
monly considered  the  only  poems  of  the  writers. 
Such  are  "  The  Star-spangled  Banner,"  by  F.  S.  Key  ; 
"  Woodman,  Spare  that  Tree  "  (very  insipid,  by  the 
way),  by  George  P.  Morris  ;  "  A  Hymn,"  by  Joseph 
H.  Clinch ;  "  The  Baron's  Last  Banquet "  and  "  Old 
Grimes  is  Bead,"  by  A.  G.  Greene  ;  "  My  Life  is  like 
the  Summer  Rose,"  by  R.  H.  Wilde ;  "  Sweet  Home," 
by  John  Howard  Payne ;  "  The  Christmas  Hymn," 
by  E.  H.  Sears  ;  «  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  by  Samuel 
Woodworth ;  "  Milton's  Prayer  of  Patience,"  by  Eliza- 
beth Lloyd  Howell;  "The  Relief  of  Lucknow,"  by 
Robert  Lowell ;  "  The  Old  Sergeant,"  by  Forceythe 
Wilson;  "The  Vagabonds,"  by  J.  T.  Trowbridge ; 
and  "  Gnosis,"  by  C.  P.  Cranch.  There  are  other 
pieces,  like  the  "  Count  Paul,"  and  especially  the 
"Theodora,"  of  Mrs.  Drinker  (Edith  May),  which 
seem  to  be  more  deserving  of  success  than  some  of 
those  which  have  attained  it.  But  little  justice  has 

9 


130  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

been  done  to  the  poetic  and  dramatic  talent  of  George 
H.  Boker.  "  The  King's  Bell,"  exquisite  for  the  lim- 
pid flow  of  its  verse  and  the  sweetly  melancholy 
tone  of  its  thought,  together  with  other  poems  by 
Richard  Henry  Stoddard,  have  not  received  their 
due  meed  of  praise.  T.  Buchanan  Read  wrote  vol- 
umes of  rich  descriptive  poetry,  but  the  popularity  of 
"  Sheridan's  Ride  "  is  not  sufficient  to  attract  attention 
to  them. 

In  thus  commenting  on  the  instability  and  uncer- 
tainty of  the  public  taste  in  respect  to  poets,  we  have 
unconsciously  indicated  quite  an  excellent  body  of 
American  poetry,  and  we  may  proceed  with  the 
enumeration. 

W.  W.  Story,  famous  as  a  sculptor,  is  also  a  poet, 
who  throws  into  verse  the  same  energy  of  inspiration 
which  is  so  obvious  in  his  statues.  Mrs.  Frances  S. 
Osgood  had  a  singularly  musical  nature,  %  and  her 
poems  sing  of  themselves.  She  did  not  appear  to 
feel  the  fetters  of  rhyme  ;  she  danced  in  them.  Her 
poems,  however,  have  the  thinness  of  substance  which 
often  accompanies  quickness  of  sensibility  and  activ- 
ity of  fancy.  As  it  is,  the  reader  rises  from  the  pe- 
rusal of  her  poems  with  a  delicious  melody  in  his 
ears,  a  charming  feeling  in  his  heart,  and  with  but 
few  thoughts  in  his  head.  Mrs.  M.  J.  Preston  has  a 
more  robust  intellect,  greater  intensity  of  feeling,  and 
more  force  of  imagination  than  Mrs.  Osgood,  though 
lacking  her  lovely  grace  and  bewitching  melodious- 
ness ;  but  Mrs.  Osgood  could  not  have  written  a  poem 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  131 

so  deeply  pathetic  as  "  Keeping  His  Word."  Henry 
Tirnrod  and  Paul  H.  Hayne  are,  with  Mrs.  Preston, 
the  most  distinguished  poets  of  the  South.  Timrod's 
ode,  sung  on  the  occasion  of  decorating  the  graves  of 
the  Confederate  dead,  is,  in  its  simple  grandeur,  the 
noblest  poem  ever  written  by  a  Southern  poet.  Hayne 
exhibits  in  all  his  pieces  a  rich  sensuousness  of  nature, 
a  seemingly  exhaustless  fertility  of  fancy,  an  uncom- 
mon felicity  of  poetic  description,  and  an  easy  com- 
mand of  the  harmonies  of  verse.  John  G.  Saxe  owes 
his  wide  acceptance  with  the  public  not  merely  to  the 
elasticity  of  his  verse,  the  sparkle  of  his  wit,  and  the 
familiarity  of  his  topics,  but  to  his  power  of  diffusing 
the  spirit  of  his  own  good  humor.  The  unctuous 
satisfaction  he  feels  in  putting  his  mood  of  merriment 
into  rhyme  is  communicated  to  his  reader,  so  that, 
as  it  were,  they  laugh  joyously  together.  Edmund 
Clarence  Stedman,  in  addition  to  his  merits  as  a 
critic  of  poetry,  has  written  poems  which  stir  the 
blood  as  well  as  quicken  the  imagination.  Such, 
among  others,  are  "  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie  "  and 
"  Kearney  at  Seven  .Pines."  Perhaps  the  finest  re- 
cent examples  of  exquisitely  subtile  imagination  work- 
ing under  the  impulse  of  profound  sentiment  are  to 
be  found  in  the  little  volume  entitled  "  Poems  by 
H.  H."  (Mrs.  Helen  Hunt). 

.We  have  space  only  to  mention  the  names  of 
Jones  Very,  Celia  Thaxter,  Mrs.  Lippincott  (Grace 
Greenwood),  H.  H.  Brownell,  Will  Carleton  (author 
of  "Farm  Ballads"),  Alice  and  Phoebe  Cary,  and 


132  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

Mrs.  L.  C.  Moulton,  though   each  would  justify  a 
detailed  criticism. 

The  limits  of  this  essay  do  not  admit  the  mention 
of  every  author  who  is  worthy  of  notice.  The  reader 
must  be  referred  for  details  to  the  various  volumes  of 
Dr.  R.  W.  Griswold,  to  the  "  Cyclopedia  of  American 
Literature,"  by  E.  A.  and  G.  L.  Duyckinck,  to  the 
useful  "  Manual  of  American  Literature,"  by  Dr.  John 
S.  Hart,  and  the  excellent  "  Hand-Book  of  American 
Literature,"  by  F.  H.  Underwood.  Still,  before  con- 
cluding, it  may  be  well  to  mention  some  names  with- 
out which  even  so  limited  a  view  of  American  literature 
as  the  present  would  be  incomplete.  And  first,  honor 
is  due  to  Henry  T.  Tuckerrnan,  who  for  nearly  forty 
years  was  the  associate  of  American  authors,  and  who 
labored  year  after  year  to  diffuse  a  taste  for  literature 
by  his  articles  in  reviews  and  magazines.  He  be- 
longed to  the  class  of  appreciative  critics,  and  was 
never  more  pleased  than  when  he  exercised  the  re- 
sources of  a  cultivated  mind  to  analyze,  explain,  and 
celebrate  the  merits  of  others.  Richard  Grant  White, 
a  critic  of  an  austerer  order,  has  for  some  time  been 
engaged  literally  in  a  war  of  words.  In  the  minutice 
of  English  philology  he  has  rarely  met  an  antagonist 
he  has  not  overthrown.  In  these  encounters  he  has 
displayed  wit,  learning,  logic,  a  perfect  command  of 
his  subject,  an  imperfect  command  of  his  temper. 
The  positiveness  of  his  statements,  however,  seems 
always  to  come  from  the  certainty  of  his  knowledge. 
In  his  admirable  edition  of  Shakspeare,  and  in  his 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  133 

'•Life  and  Genius  of  Shakspeare,"  he  has  exhibited 
his  rare  critical  faculty  at  its  best.  Henry  N.  Hudson, 
ilso  an  editor,  biographer,  and  critic  of  Shakspeare, 
las  specially  shown  his  masterly  power  of  analysis 
•n  commenting  on  the  characters  of  the  dramatist. 
Henry  Giles,  in  two  or  three  volumes  of  biography 
ind  criticism,  has  proved  that  clear  perceptions,  nice 
distinctions,  and  sound  sense  can  be  united  with  a 
rush  of  eloquence  which  seems  too  rapid  for  the  paus- 
ing doubt  of  discriminating  judgment.  S.  A.  Alli- 
bone's  "  Dictionary  of  Authors,"  with  its  forty-six 
thousand  names,  is  one  of  those  prodigies  of  labor 
which  excite  not  only  admiration  but  astonishment. 
George  P.  Marsh,  one  of  the  most  widely  accomplished 
of  American  scholars,  is  principally  known  as  the 
author  of  "  Lectures  on  the  English  Language  "  and 
of  "  The  English  Language  and  Early  English  Litera- 
ture," both  critical  works  of  a  high  class.  The  great- 
est comparative  philologist  the  country  has  produced, 
William  D.  Whitney,  has,  like  Max  Miiller,  in  England, 
popularized  some  of  the  results  of  his  investigations 
in  an  admirable  volume  on  "  Language,  and  the  Study 
of  Language." 

The  theological  literature  of  the  United  States 
covers  so  wide  a  field  that  it  would  be  wild  to  attempt 
to  characterize  here  even  its  eminent  representatives. 
We  can  give  only  a  few  names.  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
the  most  widely  renowned  pulpit  and  platform  orator 
of  the  country,  is  more  remarkable  for  the  general 
largeness  and  opulence  of  his  nature  than  for  the 


134  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

possession  of  any  exceptional  power  of  mind  or  extent 
of  acquisition.  As  a  theological  scholar,  or,  indeed, 
as  a  trained  and  accurate  writer,  nobody  would  think 
of  comparing  him  with  Francis  Wayland,  or  Leonard 
Bacon,  or  Edwards  A.  Park,  or  Frederick  H.  Hedge. 
In  depth  of  spiritual  insight,  though  not  in  depth  of 
spiritual  emotion,  he  is  inferior  to  Horace  Bushnell, 
Cyrus  A.  Bartol,  and  many  other  American  divines. 
He  feels  spiritual  facts  intensely ;  he  beholds  them 
with  wavering  vision.  But  his  distinction  is  that  he 
is  a  formidable,  almost  irresistible,  moral  force.  His 
influence  comes  from  the  conjoint  and  harmonious 
action  of  his  whole  blood  and  brain  and  will  and  soul, 
and  his  magnetism  being  thus  both  physical  and 
mental,  he  communicates  his  individuality  in  the  act 
of  radiating  his  thoughts,  and  thus  "Beecherizes"  his 
readers  as  he  "  Beecherizes  "  his  audiences.  He  over- 
powers where  he  fails  to  convince.  The  reader,  but 
especially  the  listener,  is  brought  into  direct  contact 
or  collision  not  only  with  a  thinker  and  a  stirrer-up 
of  the  emotions,  but  with  a  strong,  resolute,  intrepid 
man.  As  Emerson  would  say,  he  could  mob  a  mob, 
and  compel  it  to  submit.  This  continual  sense  of 
conscious  power  impels  him  into  many  imprudences 
and  indiscretions,  and  stamps  on  what  he  says,  and 
what  he  writes,  and  what  he  does,  a  character  of 
haste  and  extemporaneousness.  No  man  could  throw 
off  such  an  amount  of  intellectual  work  as  he  per- 
forms, who  thought  comprehensively  or  who  thought 
deeply ;  for  the  comprehensive  thinker  hesitates,  the 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  135 

deep  thinker  doubts;  but  hesitation  and  doubt  are 
foreign  to  Mr.  Beecher's  intellectual  constitution,  and 
only  intrude  into  his  consciousness  in  those  occasional 
reactions  caused  by  the  moral  fatigue  resulting  now 
and  then  from  his  hurried,  headlong  intellectual  move- 
ment. Observation,  sense,  wit,  humor,  fancy,  senti- 
ment, moral  perception,  moral  might,  are  all  included 
and  fused  in  the  large  individuality  whose  mode  of 
action  we  have  ventured  to  sketch.  Indeed,  an  im- 
partial student  of  character,  accustomed  to  penetrate 
into  the  souls  of  those  he  desires  inwardly  to  know, 
to  look  at  things  from  their  point  of  view,  and  to  in- 
terpret external  evidence  by  the  internal  knowledge 
he  has  thus  obtained,  would  say  that  Mr.  Beecher  was 
exactly  the  heedless,  indiscreet  man  of  religious  genius 
likely  to  become  the  subject  of  such  a  scandal  as  has 
recently  disgusted  the  country,  and  yet  to  be  perfectly 
innocent  of  the  atrocious  crimes  with  which  he  was 
charged. 

There  are  some  books  which  it  is  difficult  to  class. 
Thus,  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  published  some  thirty 
years  ago  a  volume  called  "JTwo  Years  Before  the 
Mast,"  which  became  instantly  popular,  is  popular 
now,  and  promises  to  be  popular  for  many  years  to 
come.  In  reading  it  anybody  can  see  that  it  is  more 
than  an  ordinary  record  of  a  voyage,  for  there  runs 
through  the  simple  and  lucid  narrative  an  element  of 
beauty  and  power  which  gives  it  the  artistic  charm  of 
romance.  Again,  "  Six  Months  in  Italy,"  by  George 
S.  Hillard,  and  "  Notes  of  Travel  and  Study  in  Italy," 


136  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

by  Charles  E.  Norton,  would  be  superficially  classed 
among  books  of  travel,  but  they  are  essentially  works 
of  literature,  and  their  chief  worth  consists  in  descrip- 
tions of  natural  scenery,  in  pointed  reflection,  in  deli- 
cate criticism  of  works  of  art.  The  volume  entitled 
"White  Hills,"  by  Thomas  Starr  King,  apparently 
intended  merely  to  describe  the  mountain  region  of 
.New  Hampshire,  is  all  aglow  with  a  glad  inspiration 
drawn  from  the  ardent  soul  and  teeming  mind  of  the 
writer.  Charles  T.  Brooks  would  generally  be  classed 
as  a  translator,  but  being  a  poet,  he  has  so  translated 
the  novels  of  Richter  that  he  has  domesticated  them 
in  our  language.  Such  translations  are  greater  efforts 
of  intelligence  and  imagination  than  many  original 
works.  Horace  Mann's  reports  as  secretary  of  the 
Massachusetts  Board  of  Education  rank  with  legisla- 
tive documents,  yet  they  are  really  eloquent  treatises, 
full  of  matter,  but  of  matter  burning  with  passion 
and  blazing  with  imagery.  "  Substance  and  Shadow," 
by  Henry  James,  might  be  classed  either  with  theo- 
logical or  metaphysical  works,  were  it  not  that  the 
writer,  while  treating  on  the  deepest  questions  which 
engage  the  attention  of  theologians  and  metaphysi- 
cians, stretches  both  theologians  and  metaphysicians 
on  the  rack  of  his  pitiless  analysis,  and  showers  upon 
them  all  the  boundless  stores  of  his  ridicule.  Miss 
Mary  A.  Dodge  (Gail  Hamilton)  might  be  styled  an 
essayist,  but  that  would  be  but  a  vague  term  to  denote 
a  writer  who  takes  up  all  classes  of  subjects,  is  tart, 
tender,  shrewish,  pathetic,  monitory,  objurgatory,  tol- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  137 

erant,  prejudiced,  didactic,  and  dramatic  by  turns,  but 
always  writing  with  so  much  point,  vigor,  and  fresh- 
ness that  we  can  only  classify  her  among  "  readable  " 
authors.  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli,  scholar,  critic, 
teacher,  translator,  metaphysician,  philanthropist, 
revolutionist,  a  pythoness  in  a  transcendental  coterie, 
a  nurse  in  a  soldiers'  hospital,  a  martyr  heroine  on 
board  a  wrecked  ship,  —  we  can  only  say  of  her  that 
she  was  a  woman.  There  is  a  delightful  book  entitled 
"  Yesterdays  with  Authors,"  by  James  T.  Fields  —  a 
combination  of  gossip,  biography,  and  criticism,  but 
refusing  to  be  ranked  with  either,  and  depending  for 
its  interest  on  the  life-like  pictures  it  presents  of  such 
men  as  Hawthorne,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  in  their 
hours  of  familiar  talk  and  correspondence.  There  is 
also  one  work  of  such  pretension  that  it  should  not 
be  omitted  here,  namely,  "Outlines  of  Cosmic  Phi- 
losophy, based  on  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution,"  by  John 
Fiske.  It  is  mainly  a  lucid  exposition  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  Herbert  Spencer,  with  the  addition  of  original 
and  critical  matter.  The  breadth  and  strength  of  un- 
derstanding, the  fulness  of  information,  the  command 
of  expression,  in  this  book  are  worthy  of  all  commen- 
dation. The  curious  thing  in  it  is  that  the  author 
thinks  that  a  new  religion  is  to  be  established  on  the  co- 
ordination of  the  sciences  ;  and  of  this  religion,  whose 
God  is  the  "  Unknowable,"  he  is  a  pious  believer. 

In  conclusion,  we  can  only  allude  to  the  intellectual 
force,  the  various  talents  and  accomplishments,  em- 
ployed in  the  leading  newspapers  of  the  country.  Dur- 


138  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

ing  the  past  thirty  years  these  journals  have  swarmed 
with  all  kinds  of  anonymous  ability.  Though  the 
articles  appeared  to  die  with  the  day  or  week  on  which 
they  were  printed,  they  really  passed,  for  good  or  evil, 
into  the  general  mind  as  vital  influences,  shaping  pub- 
lic opinion  and  forming  public  taste.  It  would  be 
difficult,  for  example,  to  estimate  the  beneficent  action 
on  our  literature  of  such  a  critic  and  scholar  as  George 
Ripley,  who  for  many  years  directed  the  literary  de- 
partment of  a  widely  circulated  newspaper.  The 
range  of  his  learning  was  equal  to  every  demand  upon 
its  resources;  the  candor  of  his  judgment  answered 
to  the  comprehensiveness  of  his  taste  ;  the  catholicity 
of  his  literary  sympathies  led  him  to  encourage  every 
kind  of  literary  talent  on  its  first  appearance ;  and  he 
was  pure  from  the  stain  of  that  meanest  form  of 
egotism  which  grudges  the  recognition  of  merit  in 
others,  as  if  such  a  recognition  was  a  diminution  of 
its  own  importance.  The  great  development,  during 
a  comparatively  recent  period,  of  the  magazine  litera- 
ture of  the  country  has  had  an  important  effect  in 
stimulating  and  bringing  forward  new  writers,  some 
of  whom  promise  to  more  than  fill  the  places  which 
their  elders  will  soon  leave  vacant.  It  would  be 
presumptuous  to  anticipate  the  verdict  of  the  next 
generation  as  to  which  of  these  will  fulfil  the  expec- 
tations raised  by  their  early  efforts.  That  pleasant 
duty  must  be  left  to  the  fortunate  person  who  shall 
note  the  Centennial  Progress  of  American  Literature 
in  1976. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER    AS    A    MASTER    OF 
ENGLISH    STYLE. 

FROM  my  own  experience  and  observation  I  should 
say  that  every  boy  who  is  ready  enough  in  spelling, 
grammar,  geography,  and  arithmetic,  is  appalled  when 
he  is  commanded  to  write  what  is  termed  "  a  compo- 
sition." When  he  enters  college  the  same  fear  fol- 
lows him;  and  the  Professor  of  Rhetoric  is  a  more 
terrible  personage  to  his  imagination  than  ihe  Profes- 
sors of  Greek,  Latin,  Mathematics,  and  Moral  and 
Intellectual  Philosophy.  Both  boys  at  school  and 
young  men  in  college  show  no  lack  of  power  in  speak- 
ing their  native  language  with  a  vehemence  and  flu- 
ency which  almost  stuns  the  ears  of  their  seniors. 
Why,  then,  should  they  find  such  difficulty  in  writing 
it  ?  When  you  listen  to  the  animated  talk  of  a  bright 
school-boy  or  college  student,  full  of  a  subject  which 
really  interests  him,  you  say  at  once  that  such  com- 
mand of  racy  and  idiomatic  English  words  must  of 
course  be  exhibited  in  his  "  compositions "  or  his 
"  themes ; "  but  when  the  latter  are  examined,  they 
are  commonly  found  to  be  feeble  and  lifeless,  with 
hardly  a  thought  or  a  word  which  bears  any  stamp  of 
freshness  or  originality,  and  which  are  so  inferior  to 


140  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

his  ordinary  conversation  that  we  can  hardly  believe 
they  came  from  the  same  mind. 

The  first  quality  which  strikes  an  examiner  of  these 
exercises  in  English  composition  is  their  falseness. 
No  boy  or  youth  writes  what  he  personally  thinks  and 
feels,  but  writes  what  a  good  boy  or  youth  is  expected 
to  think  or  feel.  This  hypocrisy  vitiates  his  writing 
from  first  to  last,  and  is  not  absent  in  his  "  Class 
Oration,"  or  in  his  "  Speech  at  Commencement."  I 
have  a  vivid  memory  of  the  first  time  the  boys  of  my 
class,  in  a  public  school,  were  called  upon  to  write 
"  composition."  The  themes  selected  were  the  prom- 
inent moral  virtues  or  vices.  How  we  poor  innocent 
urchins  were  tormented  by  the  task  imposed  upon  us  ! 
How  we  put  more  ink  on  our  hands  and  faces  than 
we  shed  upon  the  white  paper  on  our  desks  !  Our 
conclusions  generally  agreed  with  those  announced 
by  the  greatest  moralists  of  the  world.  Socrates  and 
Plato,  Cicero  and  Seneca,  Cudworth  and  Butler,  could 
not  have  been  more  austerely  moral  than  were  we 
little  rogues,  as  we  relieved  the  immense  exertion 
involved  in  completing  a  single  short  baby-like  sen- 
tence by  shying  at  one  companion  a  rule,  or  hurl- 
ing at  another  a  paper  pellet  intended  to  light 
plump  on  his  forehead  or  nose.  Our  custom  was 
to  begin  every  composition  with  the  proposition  that 
such  or  such  a  virtue  "  was  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  we  enjoy ; "  and  this  triumph  of  accurate 
statement  was  not  discovered  by  our  teacher  to  be 
purely  mechanical,  until  one  juvenile  thinker,  having 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.  141 

avarice  to  deal  with,  declared  it  to  be  "  one  of  the 
greatest  evils  we  enjoy."  The  whole  thing  was  such 
a  piece  of  monstrous  hypocrisy,  that  I  once  timidly 
suggested  to  the  schoolmaster  that  it  would  be  well 
to  allow  me  to  select  my  own  subject.  The  request 
was  granted  ;  and  as  narrative  is  the  natural  form 
of  composition  which  a  boy  adopts  when  he  has  his 
own  way,  I  filled,  in  less  than  half  the  time  here- 
tofore consumed  in  writing  a  quarter  of  a  page, 
four  pages  of  letter-paper  with  an  account  of  my 
being  in  a  ship  taken  by  a  pirate,  of  the  heroic 
defiance  I  launched  at  the  pirate  captain,  and  the 
sagacity  I  evinced  in  escaping  the  fate  of  my  fellow- 
passengers,  in  not  being  ordered  to  "  walk  the  plank." 
The  story,  though  trashy  enough,  was  so  much  better 
than  any  of  the  moral  essays  of  the  other  pupils,  that 
the  teacher  commanded  me  to  read  it  before  the  whole 
school,  as  an  evidence  of  the  rapid  strides  I  had  made 
in  the  art  of  "  composition." 

This  falseness  of  thought  and  feeling  is  but  too  apt 
to  characterize  the  writing  of  the  student  after  he 
has  passed  from  the  common  school  to  the  academy 
or  the  college.  The  term  "  sophomorical  "  is  used  to 
describe  speeches  which  are  full  of  emotion  which  the 
speaker  does  not  feel,  full  of  words  in  four  or  five  syl- 
lables that  mean  nothing,  and,  in  respect  to  imagery 
and  illustrations,  blazing  with  the  cheap  jewelry  of 
rhetoric,  —  with  those  rubies  and  diamonds  that  can 
be  purchased  for  a  few  pennies  an  ounce.  The  danger 
is  that  this  "sophomorical"  style  may  continue  to 


142  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

afflict  the  student  after  he  has  become  a  clergyman, 
a  lawyer,  or  a  legislator. 

Practical  men  who  may  not  be  "  college  educated  " 
still  have  the  great  virtue  of  using  the  few  words  they 
employ  as  identical  with  facts.  When  they  meet  a 
man  who  has  half  the  dictionary  at  his  disposal,  and 
yet  gives  no  evidence  of  apprehending  the  real  import 
and  meaning  of  one  word  among  the  many  thousands 
he  glibly  pours  forth,  they  naturally  distrust  him,  as 
a  person  who  does  not  know  the  vital  connection  of 
all  good  words  with  the  real  things  they  represent. 
Indeed,  the  best  rule  that  a  professor  of  rhetoric  could 
adopt  would  be  to  insist  that  no  student  under  his 
care  should  use  an  unusual  word  until  he  had  earned 
the  right  to  use  it  by  making  it  the  verbal  sign  of 
some  new  advance  in  his  thinking,  in  his  acquire- 
ments, or  in  his  feelings.  Shakspeare,  the  greatest 
of  English  writers,  —  and  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all 
writers,  —  required  fifteen  thousand  words  to  embody 
all  that  his  vast  exceptional  intelligence  acquired, 
thought,  imagined,  and  discovered ;  and  he  had  earned 
the  right  to  use  every  one  of  them.  Milton  found  that 
eight  thousand  words  could  fairly  and  fully  represent 
all  the  power,  grandeur,  and  creativeness  of  his  almost 
seraphic  soul,  when  he  attempted  to  express  his  whole 
nature  in  a  literary  form.  All  the  words  used  by 
Shakspeare  and  Milton  are  alive :  "  cut  them  and  they 
will  bleed"  But  it  is  ridiculous  for  a  college  student 
to  claim  that  he  has  the  mighty  resources  of  the  Eng- 
lish language  at  his  supreme  disposal,  when  he  has 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          143 

not  verified,  by  his  own  thought,  knowledge,  and  ex- 
perience, one  in  a  hundred  of  the  words  he  presump- 
tuously employs. 

Now,  Daniel  Webster  passed  safely  through  all  the 
stages  of  the  "  sophomoric  "  disease  of  the  mind,  as 
he  passed  safely  through  the  measles,  the  chicken-pox, 
and  other  eruptive  maladies  incident  to  childhood  and 
youth.  The  process,  however,  by  which  he  purified 
his  style  from  this  taint,  and  made  his  diction  at  last 
as  robust  and  as  manly,  as  simple  and  as  majestic,  as 
the  nature  it  expressed,  will  reward  a  little  study. 

The  mature  style  of  Webster  is  perfect  of  its  kind, 
being  in  words  the  express  image  of  his  mind  and 
character, —  plain,  terse,  clear,  forcible;  and  rising 
from  the  level  of  lucid  statement  and  argument  into 
passages  of  superlative  eloquence  only  when  his  whole 
nature  is  stirred  by  some  grand  sentiment  of  freedom, 
patriotism,  justice,  humanity,  or  religion,  which  abso- 
lutely lifts  him,  by  its  own  inherent  force  and  inspira- 
tion, to  a  region  above  that  in  which  his  mind 
habitually  lives  and  moves.  At  the  same  time  it  will 
be  observed  that  these  thrilling  passages,  which  the 
boys  of  two  generations  have  ever  been  delighted  to 
declaim  in  their  shrillest  tones,  are  strictly  illustra- 
tive of  the  main  purpose  of  the  speech  in  which  they 
appear.  They  are  not  mere  purple  patches  of  rhetoric, 
loosely  stitched  on  the  homespun  gray  of  the  reason- 
ing, but  they  seem  to  be  inwoven  with  it  and  to  be  a 
vital  part  of  it.  Indeed,  we  can  hardly  decide,  in 
reading  these  magnificent  bursts  of  eloquence  in  con- 


144  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

nection  with  what  precedes  and  follows  them,  whether 
the  effect  is  due  to  the  logic  of  the  orator  becoming 
suddenly  morally  impassioned,  or  to  his  moral  passion 
becoming  suddenly  logical.  What  gave  Webster  his 
immense  influence  over  the  opinions  of  the  people  of 
New  England  was,  first,  his  power  of  so  "  putting 
things"  that  everybody  could  understand  his  state- 
ments ;  secondly,  his  power  of  so  framing  his  argu- 
ments that  all  the  steps,  from  one  point  to  another, 
in  a  logical  series,  could  be  clearly  apprehended  by 
every  intelligent  farmer  or  mechanic  who  had  a 
thoughtful  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  country  ;  and 
thirdly,  his  power  of  inflaming  the  sentiment  of  pa- 
triotism in  all  honest  and  well-intentioned  men  by 
overwhelming  appeals  to  that  sentiment,  so  that  after 
convincing  their  understandings,  he  clinched  the 
matter  by  sweeping  away  their  wills. 

Perhaps  to  these  sources  of  influence  may  be  added 
another  which  many  eminent  statesmen  have  lacked. 
With  all  his  great  superiority  to  average  men  in  force 
and  breadth  of  mind,  he  had  a  genuine  respect  for  the 
intellect,  as  well  as  for  the  manhood,  of  average  men. 
He  disdained  the  ignoble  office  of  misleading  the 
voters  he  aimed  to  instruct;  and  the  farmers  and 
mechanics  who  read  his  speeches  felt  ennobled  when 
they  found  that  the  greatest  statesman  of  the  country 
frankly  addressed  them,  as  man  to  man,  without 
pluming  himself  on  his  exceptional  talents  and  ac- 
complishments. Up  to  the  crisis  of  1850,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  domesticating  himself  at  most  of  the  pious, 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          145 

moral,  and  intelligent  firesides  of  New  England. 
Through  his  speeches  he  seemed  to  be  almost  bodily 
present  wherever  the  family,  gathered  in  the  evening 
around  the  blazing  hearth,  discussed  the  questions  of 
the  day.  It  was  not  the  great  Mr.  Webster,  "the 
godlike  Daniel,"  who  had  a  seat  by  the  fire.  It  was 
a  person  who  talked  to  them,  and  argued  with  them, 
as  though  he  was  "  one  of  the  folks,"  —  a  neighbor 
dropping  in  to  make  an  evening  call ;  there  was  not 
the  slightest  trace  of  assumption  in  his  manner ;  but 
suddenly,  after  the  discussion  had  become  a  little 
tiresome,  certain  fiery  words  would  leap  from  his  lips 
and  make  the  whole  household  spring  to  their  feet, 
ready  to  sacrifice  life  and  property  for  "  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  Union."  That  Webster  was  thus  a  kind 
of  invisible  presence  in  thousands  of  homes  where  his 
face  was  never  seen,  shows  that  his  rhetoric  had 
caught  an  element  of  power  from  his  early  recollec- 
tions of  the  independent,  hard-headed  farmers  whom 
he  met  when  a  boy  in  his  father's  house.  The  bodies 
of  these  men  had  become  tough  and  strong  in  their 
constant  struggle  to  force  scanty  harvests  from  an 
unfruitful  soil,  which  only  persistent  toil  could  com- 
pel to  yield  anything ;  and  their  brains,  though  forci- 
ble and  clear,  were  still  not  stored  with  the  important 
facts  and  principles  which  it  was  his  delight  to  state 
and  expound.  In  truth,  he  ran  a  race  with  the  dema- 
gogues of  his  time  in  an  attempt  to  capture  such  men 
as'  these,  thinking  them  the  very  backbone  of  the 
country.  Whether  he  succeeded  or  failed,  it  would 

10 


146  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

be  vain  to  hunt  through  his  Works  to  find  a  single 
epithet  in  which  he  mentioned  them  with  contempt. 
He  was  as  incapable  of  insulting  one  member  of  this 
landed  democracy,  —  sterile  as  most  of  their  acres 
were,  —  as  of  insulting  the  memory  of  his  father,  who 
belonged  to  this  class. 

The  late  Mr.  Peter  Harvey  used  to  tell  with  much 
zest  a  story  illustrating  the  hold  which  these  early 
associations  retained  on  Webster's  mind  throughout 
his  life.  Some  months  after  his  removal  from  Ports- 
mouth to  Boston,  a  servant  knocked  at  his  chamber 
door  late  in  an  April  afternoon  in  the  year  1817,  with 
the  announcement  that  three  men  were  in  the  drawing- 
room  who  insisted  on  seeing  him.  Webster  was  over- 
whelmed with  fatigue,  the  result  of  his  Congressional 
labors  and  his  attendance  on  courts  of  law ;  and  he 
had  determined,  after  a  night's  sleep,  to  steal  a  vaca- 
tion in  order  to  recruit  his  energies  by  a  fortnight's 
fishing  and  hunting.  He  suspected  that  the  persons 
below  were  expectant  clients ;  and  he  resolved,  in 
descending  the  stairs,  not  to  accept  their  offer.  He 
found  in  the  parlor  three  plain,  country-bred,  honest- 
looking  men,  who  were  believers  in  the  innocence  of 
Levi  and  Laban  Kenniston,  accused  of  robbing  a  cer- 
tain Major  Goodridge  on  the  highway,  and  whose 
trial  would  take  place  at  Ipswich  the  next  day.  They 
could  find,  they  said,  no  member  of  the  Essex  Bar 
who  would  undertake  the  defence  of  the  Kennistons, 
and  they  had  come  to  Boston  to  engage  the  services 
of  Mr.  Webster.  Would  he  go  down  to  Ipswich  and 


AS   A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          147 

defend  the  accused  ?  Mr.  Webster  stated  that  he 
could  not  and  would  not  go ;  he  had  made  arrange- 
ments for  an  excursion  to  the  sea-side ;  the  state  of 
his  health  absolutely  demanded  a  short  withdrawal 
from  all  business  cares  ;  and  that  no  fee  could  tempt 
him  to  abandon  his  purpose.  "  Well,"  was  the  reply 
of  one  of  the  delegation,  "  it  is  n't  the  fee  that  we 
think  of  at  all,  though  we  are  willing  to  pay  what  you 
may  charge ;  but  it 's  justice.  Here  are  two  New 
Hampshire  men  who  are  believed  in  Exeter,  New- 
bury,  Newburyport,  and  Salem  to  be  rascals ;  but 
we  in  Newmarket  believe,  in  spite  of  all  evidence 
against  them,  that  they  are  the  victims  of  some  con- 
spiracy. We  think  you  are  the  man  to  unravel  it, 
though  it  seems  a  good  deal  tangled  even  to  us. 
Still,  we  suppose  that  men  whom  we  know  to  have 
been  honest  all  their  lives  can't  have  become  such 
desperate  rogues  all  of  a  sudden."  "  But  I  cannot 
take  the  case,"  persisted  Mr.  Webster ;  "  I  am  worn 
to  death  with  over-work  ;  I  have  not  had  any  real 
sleep  for  forty-eight  hours.  Besides,  I  know  nothing 
of  the  case."  "  It 's  hard,  I  can  see,"  continued  the 
leader  of  the  delegation  ;  "  but  you  're  a  New  Hamp- 
shire man,  and  the  neighbors  thought  that  you  would 
not  allow  two  innocent  New  Hampshire  men,  however 
humble  they  may  be  in  their  circumstances,  to  suffer 
for  lack  of  your  skill  in  exposing  the  wiles  of  this 
scoundrel  Goodridge.  The  neighbors  all  desire  you 
to  take  the  case."  That  phrase  "  the  neighbors " 
settled  the  question.  No  resident  of  a  city  knows 


148  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

what  the  phrase  means.  But  Webster  knew  it  in  all 
the  intense  significance  of  its  meaning.  His  imagi- 
nation flew  back  to  the  scattered  homesteads  of  a 
New  England  village,  where  mutual  sympathy  and 
assistance  are  the  necessities,  as  they  are  the  com- 
monplaces, of  village  life.  The  phrase  remotely  meant 
to  him  the  combination  of  neighbors  to  resist  an  as- 
sault of  Indian  savages,  or  to  send  volunteers  to  the 
war  which  wrought  the  independence  of  the  nation. 
It  specially  meant  to  him  the  help  of  neighbor  to 
neighbor,  in  times  of  sickness,  distress,  sorrow,  and 
calamity.  In  his  childhood  and  boyhood  the  Chris- 
tian question,  "  Who  is  my  neighbor  ? "  was  instantly 
solved  the  moment  a  matron  in  good  health  heard 
that  the  wife  of  Farmer  A,  or  Farmer  B,  was  stricken 
down  by  fever  and  needed  a  friendly  nurse  to  sit  by 
her  bedside  all  night,  though  she  had  herself  been 
toiling  hard  all  day.  Everything  philanthropists 
mean  when  they  talk  of  brotherhood  and  sisterhood 
among  men  and  women  was  condensed  in  that  homely 
phrase,  "  the  neighbors."  "  Oh  !  "  said  Webster,  rue- 
fully, "  if  the  neighbors  think  I  may  be  of  service,  of 
course  I  must  go ; "  —  and,  with  his  three  compan- 
ions, he  was  soon  seated  in  the  stage  for  Ipswich, 
where  he  arrived  at  about  midnight.  The  court  met 
the  next  morning ;  and  his  management  of  the  case 
is  still  considered  one  of  his  masterpieces  of  legal 
acumen  and  eloquence.  His  cross-examination  of 
Goodridge  rivalled,  in  mental  torture,  everything 
martyrologists  tell  us  of  the  physical  agony  endured 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          149 

by  the  victim  of  the  inquisitor,  when  roasted  before 
slow  fires  or  stretched  upon  the  rack.  Still,  it  seemed 
impossible  to  assign  any  motive  for  the  self-robbery 
and  the  self-maiming  of  Goodridge,  which  any  judge 
or  jury  would  accept  as  reasonable.  The  real  motive 
has  never  been  discovered.  Webster  argued  that  the 
motive  might  have  originated  in  a  desire  to  escape 
from  the  payment  of  his  debts,  or  in  a  whimsical 
ambition  to  have  his  name  sounded  all  over  Maine 
and  Massachusetts  as  the  heroic  tradesman  who  had 
parted  with  his  *  money  only  when  overpowered  by 
superior  force.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  motives 
may  impel  men  who  are  half-crazed  by  vanity,  or 
half-demonized  by  malice.  Coleridge  describes  lago's 
hatred  of  Othello  as  the  hatred  which  a  base  nature 
instinctively  feels  for  a  noble  one,  and  his  assignment 
of  motives  for  his  acts  as  the  mere  "  motive-hunting 
of  a  motiveless  malignity." 

Whatever  may  have  been  Goodridge's  motive  in  his 
attempt  to  ruin  the  innocent  men  he  falsely  accused, 
it  is  certain  that  Webster  saved  these  men  from  the 
unjust  punishment  of  an  imputed  crime.  Only  the 
skeleton  of  his  argument  before  the  jury  has  been 
preserved ;  but  what  we  have  of  it  evidently  passed 
under  his  revision.  He  knew  that  the  plot  of  Good- 
ridge  had  been  so  cunningly  contrived  that  every 
man  of  the  twelve  before  him,  whose  verdict  was  to 
determine  the  fate'  of  his  clients,  was  inwardly  per- 
suaded of  their  guilt.  Some  small  marked  portions 
of  the  money  which  Goodridge  swore  he  had  on  his 


150  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

person  on  the  night  of  the  pretended  robbery  were 
found  in  their  house.  Circumstantial  evidence  brought 
their  guilt  with  a  seemingly  irresistible  force  literally 
"  home "  to  them.  It  was  the  conviction  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Essex  Bar  that  no  respectable  lawyer 
could  appear  in  their  defence  without  becoming  in 
some  degree  their  accomplice.  But  Webster,  after 
damaging  the  character  of  the  prosecutor  by  his  stern 
cross-examination,  addressed  the  jury,  not  as  an  ad- 
vocate bearing  down  upon  them  with  his  arguments 
and  appeals,  but  rather  as  a  thirteenth  juryman,  who 
had  cosily  introduced  himself  into  their  company,  and 
was  arguing  the  case  with  them  after  they  had  retired 
for  consultation  among  themselves.  The  simplicity 
of  the  language  employed  is  not  more  notable  than 
the  power  evinced  in  seizing  the  main  points  on  which 
the  question  of  guilt  or  innocence  turned.  At  every 
quiet  but  deadly  stab  aimed  at  the  theory  of  the 
prosecution,  he  is  careful  to  remark  that  "  it  is  for 
the  jury  to  say  under  their  oaths  "  whether  such  in- 
consistencies or  improbabilities  should  have  any  effect 
on  their  minds.  Every  strong  argument  closes  with 
the  ever-recurring  phrase,  "  It  is  for  the  jury  to 
say ; "  and  at  the  end  the  jury,  thoroughly  convinced, 
said,  "  Not  guilty."  The  Kennistons  were  vindi- 
cated ;  and  the  public,  which  had  been  almost  unani- 
mous in  declaring  them  fit  tenants  for  the  State 
prison,  soon  blamed  the  infatuation  which  had  made 
them  the  accomplices  of  a  villain  in  hunting  down 
two  unoffending  citizens,  and  of  denouncing  every 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          151 

lawyer  who  should  undertake  their  defence  as  a  legal 
rogue. 

The  detected  scoundrel  fled  from  the  place  where 
his  rascality  had  been  exposed,  to  seek  some  other 
locality  where  the  mingled  jeers  and  curses  of  his 
dupes  would  be  unheard.  Some  twenty  years  after 
the  trial,  Mr.  Webster,  while  travelling  in  Western 
New  York,  stopped  at  an  obscure  village  tavern  to 
get  a  glass  of  water.  The  hand  of  the  man  behind 
the  bar,  who  gave  it  to  him,  trembled  violently  ;  and 
Webster,  wondering  at  the  cause,  looked  the  fellow 
steadily  in  the  eye.  He  recognized  Goodridge,  and 
understood  at  once  that  Goodridge  had  just  before 
recognized  him.  Not  a  word  passed  between  the 
felon  and  the  intrepid  advocate  who  had  stripped  his 
villany  of  all  its  plausible  disguises  ;  but  what  im- 
mense meaning  must  there  have  been  in  the  swift 
interchange  of  feeling  as  their  eyes  met !  Mr.  Webster 
entered  his  carriage  and  proceeded  on  his  journey ; 
but  Goodridge, — who  has  since  ever  heard  of  him  ? 

This  story  is  a  slight  digression,  but  it  illustrates 
that  hold  on  reality,  that  truth  to  fact,  which  was  one 
of  the  sources  of  the  force  and  simplicity  of  Mr. 
Webster's  mature  style.  He,  however,  only  obtained 
these  good  qualities  of  rhetoric  by  long  struggles  with 
constant  temptations,  in  his  early  life,  to  use  resound- 
ing expressions  and  flaring  images  which  he  had  not 
earned  the  right  to  use.  His  Fourth  of  July  oration 
at  Hanover,  when  he  was  only  eighteen,  and  his  col- 
lege addresses,  must  have  been  very  bad  in  their  die- 


152  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tion  if  we  can  judge  of  them  by  the  style  of  his  private 
correspondence  at  the  time.  The  verses  he  incorpo- 
rates in  his  letters  are  deformed  by  all  the  faults  of 
false  thinking  and  borrowed  expression  which  charac- 
terized contemporary  American  imitators  of  English 
imitators  of  Pope  and  Gray.  Think  of  the  future 
orator,  lawyer,  and  senator  writing,  even  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  such  balderdash  as  this !  — 

"  And  Heaven  grant  me,  whatever  luck  betide, 
Be  fame  or  fortune  given  or  denied, 
Some  cordial  friend  to  meet  my  warm  desire, 
Honest  as  John  and  good  as  Nehemiah." 

In  reading  such  couplets  we  are  reminded  of  the 
noted  local  poet  of  New  Hampshire  (or  was  it  Maine  ?) 
who  wrote  "  The  Shepherd's  Songs,"  and  some  of 
whose  rustic  lines  still  linger  in  the  memory  to  be 
laughed  at,  such,  for  instance,  as  these  :  — 

"  This  child  who  perished  in  the  fire, — 
His  father's  name  was  Nehemiah." 

Or  these :  — 

"  Napoleon,  that  great  exite, 
Who  scoured  all  Europe  like  a  file." 

And  Webster's  prose  was  then  almost  as  bad  as 
his  verse,  though  it  was  modelled  on  what  was  con- 
sidered fine  writing  at  the  opening  of  the  present 
century.  He  writes  to  his  dearest  student  friends  in 
a  style  which  is  profoundly  insincere,  though  the 
thoughts  are  often  good,  and  the  fact  of  his  love  for 
his  friends  cannot  be  doubted.  He  had  committed  to 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          153 

memory  Fisher  Ames's  noble  speech  on  the  British 
Treaty,  and  had  probably  read  some  of  Burke's  great 
pamphlets  on  the  French  Revolution.  The  stripling 
statesman  aimed  to  talk  in  their  high  tone  and  in 
their  richly  ornamented  language,  before  he  had 
earned  the  right  even  to  mimic  their  style  of  expres- 
sion. There  is  a  certain  swell  in  some  of  his  long 
sentences,  and  a  kind  of  good  sense  in  some  of  his 
short  ones,  which  suggest  that  the  writer  is  a  youth 
endowed  with  elevation  as  well  as  strength  of  nature, 
and  is  only  making  a  fool  of  himself  because  he 
thinks  he  must  make  a  fool  of  himself  in  order  that 
he  may  impress  his  correspondents  with  the  idea  that 
he  is  a  master  of  the  horrible  jargon  which  all  bright 
young  fellows  at  that  time  innocently  supposed  to 
constitute  eloquence.  Thus,  in  February,  1800,  he 
writes  thus  to  his  friend  Bingham :  "  In  my  melan- 
choly moments  I  presage  the  most  dire  calamities. 
I  already  see  in  my  imagination  the  time  when  the 
banner  of  civil  war  shall  be  unfurled ;  when  Discord's 
hydra  form  shall  set  up  her  hideous  yell,  and  from 
her  hundred  mouths  shall  howl  destruction  through 
our  empire  ;  and  when  American  blood  shall  be 
made  to  flow  in  rivers  by  American  swords !  But 
propitious  Heaven  prevent  such  dreadful  calamities  ! 
Internally  secure,  we  have  nothing  to  fear.  Let 
Europe  pour  her  embattled  millions  around  us,  let  her 
thronged  cohorts  cover  our  shores,  from  St.  Lawrence 
to  St.  Marie's,  yet  United  Columbia  shall  stand  un- 
moved ;  the  manes  of  her  deceased  Washington  shall 


154  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

guard  the  liberties  of  his  country,  and  direct  the 
sword  of  freedom  in  the  day  of  battle."  And  think 
of  this,  not  in  a  Fourth  of  July  oration,  but  in  a 
private  letter  to  an  intimate  acquaintance  !  The 
bones  of  Daniel  Webster  might  be  supposed  to  have 
moved  in  their  coffin  at  the  thought  that  this  miser- 
able trash  —  so  regretted  and  so  amply  atoned  for  — 
should  have  ever  seen  the  light ;  but  it  is  from  such 
youthful  follies  that  we  measure  the  vigor  of  the  man 
who  outgrows  them. 

It  was  fortunate  that  Webster,  after  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  came  into  constant  collision,  in  the 
courts  of  New  Hampshire,  with  one  of  the  greatest 
masters  of  the  common  law  that  the  country  has  ever 
produced,  —  Jeremiah  Mason.  It  has  been  said  that 
Mr.  Mason  educated  Webster  into  a  lawyer  by  oppos- 
ing him.  He  did  more  than  this  ;  he  cured  Webster 
of  all  the  florid  foolery  of  his  early  rhetorical  style. 
Of  all  men  that  ever  appeared  before  a  jury,  Mason 
was  the  most  pitiless  realist,  the  most  terrible  enemy 
of  what  is  —  in  a  slang  term  as  vile  almost  as  itself  — 
called  "  hifalutin ; "  and  woe  to  the  opposing  lawyer 
who  indulged  in  it !  He  relentlessly  pricked  all  rhet- 
orical bubbles,  reducing  them  at  once  to  the  small 
amount  of  ignominious  suds,  which  the  orator's  breath 
had  converted  into  colored  globes  having  some  ap- 
pearance of  stability  as  well  as  splendor.  Six  feet 
and  seven  inches  high,  and  corpulent  in  proportion, 
this  inexorable  representative  of  good  sense  and  sound 
law  stood,  while  he  was  arguing  a  case,  "  quite  near 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          155 

to  the  jury,"  says  Webster,  —  "  so  near  that  he  might 
have  laid  his  finger  on  the  foreman's  nose  ;  and  then 
he  talked  to  them  in  a  plain  conversational  way,  in 
short  sentences,  and  using  no  word  that  was  not 
level  to  the  comprehension  of  the  least  educated  man 
on  the  panel.  This  led  me,"  he  adds,  "  to  examine 
my  own  style,  and  I  set  about  reforming  it  altogether." 
Mr.  Mason  was  what  the  lawyers  call  a  "  cause- 
getting  man,"  like  Sir  James  Scarlett,  Brougham's 
great  opponent  at  the  English  bar.  It  was  said  of 
Scarlett  that  he  gained  his  verdicts  because  there 
were  twelve  Scarletts  in  the  jury-box ;  and  Mason  so 
contrived  to  blend  his  stronger  mind  with  the  minds 
of  the  jurymen,  that  his  thoughts  appeared  to  be 
theirs,  expressed  in  the  same  simple  words  and  quaint 
illustrations  which  they  would  have  used  if  asked  to 
give  their  opinions  on  the  case.  It  is  to  be  added 
that  Mason's  almost  cynical  disregard  of  ornament  in 
his  addresses  to  the  jury  gave  to  an  opponent  like 
Webster  the  advantage  of  availing  himself  of  those 
real  ornaments  of  speech  which  spring  directly  from 
a  great  heart  and  imagination.  Webster,  without 
ever  becoming  so  supremely  plain  and  simple  in  style 
as  Mason,  still  strove  to  emulate,  in  his  legal  state- 
ments and  arguments,  the  homely,  robust  common- 
sense  of  his  antagonist ;  but  wherever  the  case  allowed 
of  it,  he  brought  into  the  discussion  an  element  of 
w/zcommon  sense,  the  gift  of  his  own  genius  and 
individuality,  which  Mason  could  hardly  compre- 
hend sufficiently  to  controvert,  but  which  was  surely 


156  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

not  without  its  effect  in  deciding  the  verdicts  of 
juries. 

It  is  probable  that  Webster  was  one  of  the  few 
lawyers  and  statesmen  that  Mason  respected.  Mason's 
curt,  sharp,  "  vitriolic  "  sarcasms  on  many  men  who 
enjoyed  a  national  reputation,  and  who  were  popu- 
larly considered  the  lights  of  their  time,  still  remain 
in  the  memories  of  his  surviving  associates  as  things 
which  may  be  quoted  in  conversation,  but  which  it 
would  be  cruel  to  put  into  print.  Of  Webster,  how- 
ever, he  never  seems  to  have  spoken  a  contemptuous 
word.  Indeed,  Mason,  though  fourteen  years  older 
than  Webster,  and  fighting  him  at  the  Portsmouth 
bar  with  all  the  formidable  force  of  his  logic  and 
learning,  was  from  the  first  his  cordial  friend.  That 
friendship,  early  established  between  strong  natures 
so  opposite  in  character,  was  never  disturbed  by  any 
collision  in  the  courts.  In  a  letter  written,  I  think,  a 
few  weeks  after  he  had  made  that  "  Reply  to  Hayne  " 
which  is  conceded  to  be  one  of  the  great  masterpieces 
of  eloquence  in  the  recorded  oratory  of  the  world, 
Webster  wrote  jocularly  to  Mason  :  "  I  have  been 
written  to,  to  go  to  New  Hampshire,  to  try  a  cause 
against  you  next  August.  ...  If  it  were  an  easy  and 
plain  case  on  our  side,  I  might  be  willing  to  go ;  but 
I  have  some  of  your  pounding  in  my  hones  yet,  and 
I  don't  care  about  any  more  till  that  wears  out." 

It  may  be  said  that  Webster's  argument  in  the 
celebrated  Dartmouth  College  Case,  before  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  placed  him,  at 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          157 

the  age  of  thirty-six,  in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  con- 
stitutional lawyers  of  the  country.  For  the  main 
points  of  the  reasoning,  and  for  the  exhaustive  cita- 
tion of  authorities  by  which  the  reasoning  was  sus- 
tained, he  was  probably  indebted  to  Mason,  who  had 
previously  argued  the  case  before  the  Superior  Court 
of  New  Hampshire  ;  but  his  superiority  to  Mason  was 
shown  in  the  eloquence,  the  moral  power,  he  infused 
into  his  reasoning,  so  as  to  make  the  dullest  citation 
of  legal  authority  tell  on  the  minds  he  addressed. 

There  is  one  incident  connected  with  this  speech 
which  proves  what  immense  force  is  given  to  simple 
words  when  a  great  man  —  great  in  his  emotional 
nature  as  well  as  great  in  logical  power  —  is  behind 
the  words.  "  It  is,  sir,  as  I  have  said,  a  small  college. 
And  yet  there  are  those  who  love  it."  At  this  point 
the  orator's  lips  quivered,  his  voice  choked,  his  eyes, 
filled  with  tears,  —  all  the  memories  of  sacrifices  en- 
dured by  his  father  and  mother,  his  brothers  and 
sisters,  in  order  that  he  might  enjoy  its  rather  scanty 
advantages  of  a  liberal  education,  and  by  means  of 
which  he  was  there  to  plead  its  cause  before  the  su- 
preme tribunal  of  the  nation,  rushed  suddenly  upon  his 
mind  in  an  overwhelming  flood.  The  justices  of  the 
Supreme  Court — great  lawyers,  tried  and  toughened 
by  experience  into  a  certain  obdurate  sense  of  justice, 
and  insensible  to  any  common  appeal  to  their  hearts 
—  melted  into  unwonted  tenderness,  as  in  broken 
words  the  advocate  proceeded  to  state  his  own  indebt- 
edness to  the  "  small  college  "  whose  rights  and  privi- 


158  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

leges  he  was  there  to  defend.  Chief  Justice  Marshall's 
eyes  were  filled  with  tears  ;  and  the  eyes  of  the  other 
justices  were  suffused  with  a  moisture  similar  to  that 
which  afflicted  the  eyes  of  the  Chief.  As  the  orator 
gradually  recovered  his  accustomed  stern  composure 
of  manner,  he  turned  to  the  counsel  on  the  other  side, 
—  one  of  whom,  at  least,  was  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth, 
— and  in  his  deepest  and  most  thrilling  tones  thus 
concluded  his  argument :  "  Sir,  I  know  not  how  others 
may  feel ;  but  for  myself,  when  I  see  my  Alma  Mater 
surrounded,  like  Csesar  in  the  senate-house,  by  those 
who  are  reiterating  stab  after  stab,  I  would  not,  for 
this  right  hand,  have  her  turn  to  me  and  say,  Et  tu 
quoque,  mi  fili !  —  And  thou  too,  my  son."  The  effect 
was  overwhelming ;  yet  by  what  simple  means  was  it 
produced,  and  with  what  small  expenditure  of  words ! 
The  eloquence  was  plainly  "  in  the  man,  in  the  subject, 
and  in  the  occasion,"  but  most  emphatically  was  it  in 
the  MAN. 

Webster's  extreme  solicitude  to  make  his  style 
thoroughly  Websterian — a  style  unimitated  because 
it  is  in  itself  inimitable  —  is  observable  in  the  care  he 
took  in  revising  all  his  speeches  and  addresses  which 
were  published  under  his  own  authority.  His  great 
Plymouth  oration  of  1820  did  not  appear  in  a  pam- 
phlet form  until  a  year  after  its  delivery.  The  chief 
reason  of  this  delay  was  probably  due  to  his  desire  of 
stating  the  main  political  idea  of  the  oration  —  that 
government  is  founded  on  property  —  so  clearly  that 
it  could  not  be  misconceived  by  any  honest  mind,  and 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          159 

could  only  be  perverted  from  its  plain  democratic 
meaning  by  the  ingenious  malignity  of  such  minds  as 
are  deliberately  dishonest,  and  consider  lying  as  jus- 
tifiable when  lying  will  serve  a  party  purpose.  It  is 
probable  that  Webster  would  have  been  President  of 
the  United  States  had  it  not  been  for  one  short  sen- 
tence in  this  oration, — "Government  is  founded  on 
property."  It  was  of  no  use  for  his  political  friends 
to  prove  that  he  founded  on  this  general  proposition 
the  most  democratic  views  as  to  the  distribution 
of  property,  and  advised  the  enactment  of  laws  cal- 
culated to  frustrate  the  accumulation  of  large  for- 
tunes in  a  few  hands.  There  were  the  words,  words 
horrible  to  the  democratic  imagination,  and  Webster 
was  proclaimed  an  aristocrat,  and  an  enemy  to  the 
common  people.  But  the  delay  in  the  publication  of 
the  oration  may  also  be  supposed  to  have  been  due  to 
his  desire  to  prune  all  its  grand  passages  of  eloquence 
of  every  epithet  and  image  which  should  not  be  rigor- 
ously exact  as  expressions  of  his  genuine  sentiments 
and  principles.  It  is  probable  that  the  Plymouth 
oration,  as  we  possess  it  in  print,  is  a  better  oration, 
in  respect  to  composition,  than  that  which  was  heard 
by  the  applauding  crowd  before  which  it  was  origin- 
ally delivered.  It  is  certain  that  the  largeness,  the 
grandeur,  the  weight  of  Webster's  whole  nature,  were 
first  made  manifest  to  the  intelligent  portion  of  his 
countrymen  by  this  noble  commemorative  address. 

Yet  it  is  also  certain  that  he  was  not  himself  alto- 
gether satisfied  with  this  oration  ;  and  his  dissatisfac- 


V 

160  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tion  with  some  succeeding  popular  speeches,  memorable 
in  the  annals  of  American  eloquence,  was  expressed 
privately  to  his  friends  in  the  most  emphatic  terms. 
On  the  day  he  completed  his  magnificent  Bunker  Hill 
oration,  delivered  on  the  17th  of  June,  1825,  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  George  Ticknor :  "  I  did  the  deed  this  morning, 
that  is,  I  finished  my  speech ;  and  I  am  pretty  well  per- 
suaded that  it  will  finish  me  as  far  as  reputation  is 
concerned.  There  is  no  more  tone  in  it  than  in  the 
weather  in  which  it  has  been  written  ;  it  is  perpetual 
dissolution  and  thaw."  Every  critic  will  understand 
the  force  of  that  word  "tone."  He  seemed  to  feel 
that  it  had  not  enough  robust  manliness,  —  that  the 
ribs  and  backbone,  the  facts,  thoughts,  and  real  sub- 
stance of  the  address  were  not  sufficiently  prominent, 
owing  to  the  frequency  of  those  outbursts  of  magnetic 
eloquence  which  made  the  immense  audience  that 
listened  to  it  half  crazy  with  the  vehemence  of  their 
applause.  On  the  morning  after  he  had  delivered  his 
eulogy  on  Adams  and  Jefferson,  he  entered  his  oifice 
with  his  manuscript  in  his  hand,  and  threw  it  down 
on  the  desk  of  a  young  student  at  law  whom  he  spe- 
cially esteemed,  with  the  request, a  There,  Tom,  please 
to  take  that  discourse,  and  weed  out  all  the  Latin 
'  words." 

Webster's  liking  for  the  Saxon  element  of  our 
composite  language  was,  however,  subordinate  to  his 
main  purpose  of  self-expression.  Every  word  was 
good,  whether  of  Saxon  or  Latin  derivation,  which 
aided  him  to  embody  the  mood  of  mind  dominant  at 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          161 

the  time  he  was  speaking  or  writing.  No  man  had 
less  of  what  has  been  called  "  the  ceremonial  cleanli- 
ness of  academical  Pharisees ; "  and  the  purity  of 
expression  he  aimed  at  was  to  put  into  a  form,  at 
once  intelligible  and  tasteful,  his  exact  thoughts  and 
emotions.  He  tormented  reporters,  proof-readers,  and 
the  printers  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  engaged  in 
putting  one  of  his  performances  into  type,  not  because 
this  or  that  word  was  or  was  not  Saxon  or  Latin,  but 
because  it  was  inadequate  to  convey  perfectly  his 
meaning.  Mr.  Kemble,  a  great  Anglo-Saxon  scholar, 
once,  in  a  company  of  educated  gentlemen,  defied 
anybody  present  to  mention  a  single  Latin  phrase  in 
our  language  for  which  he  could  not  furnish  a  more 
forcible  Saxon  equivalent.  "  The  impenetrability  of 
matter "  was  suggested ;  and  Kemble,  after  half  a 
minute's  reflection,  answered,  "  The  un-thorough- 
fareableness  of  stuff."  Still,  no  English  writer  would 
think  of  discarding  such  an  abstract,  but  convenient 
and  accurate,  term  as  "  impenetrability "  for  the 
coarsely  concrete  and  terribly  ponderous  word  which 
declares  that  there  is  no  possible  thoroughfare,  no 
road,  by  which  we  can  penetrate  that  substance  which 
we  call  "matter,"  and  which  our  Saxon  forefathers 
called  "  stuff."  Wherever  the  Latin  element  in  our 
language  comes  in  to  express  ideas  and  sentiments 
which  were  absent  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind, 
Webster  uses  it  without  stint ;  and  some  of  the  most 
resounding  passages  of  his  eloquence  owe  to  it  their 
strange  power  to  suggest  a  certain  vastness  in  his 

11 


162  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

intellect  and  sensibility,  which  the  quaint,  idiomatic, 
homely  prose  of  his  friend  Mason  would  have  been 
utterly  incompetent  to  convey.  Still,  he  preferred  a 
plain,  plump,  simple  verb  or  noun  to  any  learned 
phrase,  whenever  he  could  employ  it  without  limiting 
his  opulent  nature  to  a  meagre  vocabulary,  incompe- 
tent fully  to  express  it. 

Yet  he  never  departed  from  simplicity  ;  that  is,  he 
rigidly  confined  himself  to  the  use  of  such  words  as 
he  had  earned  the  right  to  use.  Whenever  the  re- 
port of  one  of  his  extemporaneous  speeches  came 
before  him  for  revision,  he  had  an  instinctive  sagacity 
in  detecting  every  word  that  had  slipped  unguard- 
edly from  his  tongue,  which  he  felt,  on  reflection, 
did  not  belong  to  him.  Among  the  reporters  of  his 
speeches  he  had  a  particular  esteem  for  Henry  J. 
Raymond,  afterwards  so  well  known  as  the  editor  of 
the  "  New  York  Times."  Mr.  Raymond  told  me 
that  after  he  had  made  a  report  of  one  of  Webster's 
speeches,  and  had  presented  it  to  him  for  revision, 
his  conversation  with  him  was  always  a  lesson  in 
rhetoric.  "  Did  I  use  that  phrase  ?  I  hope  not.  At 
any  rate,  substitute  for  it  this  more  accurate  defini- 
tion." And  then  again  :  "  That  word  does  not  ex- 
press my  meaning.  Wait  a  moment,  and  I  will  give 
you  a  better  one.  That  sentence  is  slovenly,  —  that 
image  is  imperfect  and  confused.  I  believe,  my  young 
friend,  that  you  have  a  remarkable  power  of  reporting 
what  I  say ;  but  if  I  said  that,  and  that,  and  that,  it 
must  have  been  owing  to  the  fact  that  I  caught,  in 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          163 

the  hurry  of  the  moment,  such  expressions  as  I  could 
command  at  the  moment ;  and  you  see  they  do  not 
accurately  represent  the  idea  that  was  in  my  mind." 
And  thus,  Mr.  Raymond  said,  the  orator's  criticism 
upon  his  own  speech  would  go  on,  —  correction  fol- 
lowing correction,  —  until  the  reporter  feared  he 
would  not  have  it  ready  for  the  morning  edition  of 
his  journal. 

Webster  had  so  much  confidence  in  Raymond's 
power  of  reporting  him  accurately,  that  when  he 
intended  to  make  an  important  speech  in  the  Senate, 
he  would  send  a  note  to  him,  asking  him  to  come  to 
Washington  as  a  personal  favor ;  for  he  knew  that 
the  accomplished  editor  had  a  rare  power  of  appre- 
hending a  long  train  of  reasoning,  and  of  so  reporting 
it  that  the  separate  thoughts  would  not  only  be 
exactly  stated,  but  the  relations  of  the  thoughts  to 
each  other  —  a  much  more  difficult  task  —  would  be 
preserved  throughout,  and  that  the  argument  would  be 
presented  in  the  symmetrical  form  in  which  it  existed 
in  the  speaker's  mind.  Then  would  follow,  as  of  old, 
the  severe  scrutiny  of  the  phraseology  of  the  speech  ; 
and  Webster  would  give,  as  of  old,  a  new  lesson  in 
rhetoric  to  the  accomplished  reporter  who  was  so 
capable  of  following  the  processes  of  his  mind. 

The  great  difficulty  with  speakers  who  may  be  suf- 
ficiently clear  in  statement  and  cogent  in  argument  is 
that  turn  in  their  discourse  when  their  language 
labors  to  become  figurative.  Imagery  makes  palpa- 
ble to  the  bodily  eye  the  abstract  thought  seen  only 


164  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

by  the  eye  of  the  mind  ;  and  all  orators  aim  at  giving 
vividness  to  their  thinking  by  thus  making  their 
thoughts  visible.  The  investigation  of  the  process  of 
imagination  by  which  this  end  is  reached  is  an  inter- 
esting study.  Woe  to  the  speaker  who  is  ambitious 
to  rise  into  the  region  of  imagination  without  possess- 
ing the  faculty  !  Everybody  remembers  the  remark 
of  Sheridan  when  Tierney,  the  prosaic  Whig  leader  of 
the  English  House  of  Commons,  ventured  to  bring  in, 
as  an  illustration  of  his  argument,  the  fabulous  but 
favorite  bird  of  untrained  orators,  the  phoenix,  which 
is  supposed  always  to  spring  up  alive  out  of  its  own 
ashes.  "  It  was,"  said  Sheridan,  "  a  poulterer's  de- 
scription of  a  phoenix."  That  is,  Tierney,  from  de- 
fect of  imagination,  could  not  lift  his  poetic  bird 
above  the  rank  of  a  common  hen  or  chicken. 

The  test  that  may  be  most  easily  applied  to  all 
efforts  of  the  imagination  is  sincerity  ;  for,  like  other 
qualities  of  the  mind,  it  acts  strictly  within  the  limits 
of  a  man's  character  and  experience.  The  meaning 
of  the  word  "  experience,"  however,  must  not  be  con- 
fined to  what  he  has  personally  seen  and  felt,  but  is 
also  to  be  extended  to  everything  he  has  seen  and 
felt  through  vital  sympathy  with  facts,  scenes,  events, 
and  characters,  which  he  has  learned  by  conversation 
with  other  men  and  through  books.  Webster  laid 
great  emphasis  on  conversation  as  one  of  the  most 
important  sources  of  imagery  as  well  as  of  positive 
knowledge.  "  In  my  education,"  he  once  remarked 
to  Charles  Sumner,  "  I  have  found  that  conversation 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          165 

with  the  intelligent  men  I  have  had  the  good  fortune 
to  meet  has  done  more  for  me  than  books  ever  did  ; 
for  I  learn  more  from  them  in  a  talk  of  half  an  hour 
than  I  could  possibly  learn  from  their  books.  Their 
minds,  in  conversation,  come  into  intimate  contact 
with  my  own  mind  ;  and  I  absorb  certain  secrets  of 
their  power,  whatever  may  be  its  quality,  which  I 
could  not  have  detected  in  their  works.  Converse, 
converse^  CONVERSE  with  living  men,  face  to  face,  and 
mind  to  mind, — that  is  one  of  the  best  sources  of 
knowledge." 

But  my  present  object  is  simply  to  give  what  may 
be  called  the  natural  history  of  metaphor,  compari- 
son, image,  trope,  and  the  like,  whether  imagery  be 
employed  by  an  uneducated  husbandman,  or  by  a 
great  orator  and  writer.  Many  readers  may  recollect 
the  anecdote  of  the  New  Hampshire  farmer,  who  was 
once  complimented  on  the  extremely  handsome  ap- 
pearance of  a  horse  which  he  was  somewhat  sullenly 
urging  on  to  perform  its  work.  "  Yaas,"  was  the 
churlish  reply,  "  the  critter  looks  well  enough,  but 
then  he  is  as  slow  as  —  as  —  as  —  well,  as  slow  as 
cold  molasses."  This  perfectly  answers  to  Bacon's 
definition  of  imagination,  as  "  thought  immersed  in 
matter."  The  comparison  is  exactly  on  a  level  with 
the  experience  of  the  person  who  used  it.  He  had 
seen  his  good  wife,  on  so  many  bitter  winter  morn- 
ings when  he  was  eager  for  his  breakfast,  turn  the 
molasses-jug  upside  down,  and  had  noted  so  often  the 
reluctance  of  the  congealed  sweetness  to  assume  its 


166  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

liquid  nature,  that  the  thing  had  become  to  him  the 
visible  image  of  the  abstract  notion  of  slowness  of 
movement.  An  imaginative  dramatist  or  novelist, 
priding  himself  on  the  exactness  with  which  he  repre- 
sented character,  could  not  have  invented  a  more  ap- 
propriate comparison  to  be  put  into  the  mouth  of  an 
imagined  New  England  farmer. 

The  only  objection  to  such  rustic  poets  is  that  a 
comparatively  few  images  serve  them  for  a  lifetime  ; 
and  one  tires  of  such  "  originals  "  after  a  few  days' 
conversation  has  shown  the  extremely  limited  num- 
ber of  apt  illustrations  they  have  added  to  the  homely 
poetry  of  agricultural  life.  The  only  person  belong- 
ing to  this  class  that  I  ever  met,  who  possessed  an 
imagination  which  was  continually  creative  in  quaint 
images,  was  a  farmer  by  the  name  of  Knowlton,  who 
had  spent  fifty  years  in  forcing  some  few  acres  of  the 
rocky  soil  of  Cape  Ann  to  produce  grass,  oats,  pota- 
toes, and,  it  may  be  added,  those  ugly  stone  walls 
which  carefully  distinguish,  at  the  Cape,  one  patch 
of  miserable  sterile  land  from  another.  He  was 
equal,  in  quickness  of  imaginative  illustration,  to  the 
whole  crowd  of  clergymen,  lawyers,  poets,  and  art- 
ists, who  filled  the  boarding-houses  of  Pigeon  Cove  ; 
and  he  was  absolutely  inexhaustible  in  fresh  and 
original  imagery.  On  one  hot  summer  day,  —  the  con- 
tinuation of  fourteen  hot  summer  days,  —  when  there 
was  fear  all  over  Cape  Ann  that  the  usual  scanty 
crops  would  be  withered  up  by  the  intense  heat,  and 
the  prayer  for  rain  was  in  almost  every  farmer's  heart, 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          167 

I  met  Mr.  Knowlton,  as  he  was  looking  philosophically 
over  one  of  his  own  sun-smitten  fields  of  grass.  Think- 
ing that  I  was  in  full  sympathy  with  his  own  feeling 
at  the  dolorous  prospect  before  his  eyes,  I  said,  in  ac- 
costing him,  that  it  was  bad  weather  for  the  farmers. 
He  paused  for  half  a  minute ;  and  then  his  mind 
flashed  back  on  an  incident  of  his  weekly  experience, 
—  that  of  his  wife  "  ironing "  the  somewhat  damp 
clothes  of  the  Monday's  "  washing,"  — and  he  replied  : 
"  I  see  you  've  been  talking  with  our  farmers,  who 
are  too  stupid  to  know  what 's  for  their  good.  Ye 
see  the  spring  here  was  uncommonly  rainy,  and  the 
ground  became  wet  and  cold  ;  but  now,  for  the  last 
fortnight,  G-od  has  been  putting  his  fiat-iron  over  it, 
and  'twill  all  come  out  right  in  the  end." 

Thus  Mr.  Knowlton  went  on,  year  after  year, 
speaking  poetry  without  knowing  it,  as  Moliere's 
Monsieur  Jourdain  found  he  had  been  speaking  prose 
all  his  life  without  knowing  it.  But  the  conception 
of  the  sun  as  God's  flat-iron,  smoothing  out  and 
warming  the  moist  earth,  as  a  housewife  smooths 
and  warms  the  yet  damp  shirts,  stockings,  and  bed- 
linen  brought  into  the  house  from  the  clothes-lines 
in  the  yard,  is  an  astounding  illustration  of  that 
"  familiar  grasp  of  things  Divine,"  which  obtains  in 
so  many  of  our  rustic  households.  Dante  or  Chaucer, 
two  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  world,  would,  had 
they  happened  to  be  "  uneducated  "  men,  have  seized 
on  just  such  an  image  to  express  their  idea  of  the 
Divine  beneficence. 


168  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

This  natural,  this  instinctive  operation  of  the 
imaginative  faculty  is  often  observed  in  children. 
Numberless  are  the  stories  told  by  fond  mothers  of 
the  wonderful  things  uttered  by  their  babies  shortly 
after  they  have  left  their  cradles.  The  most  striking 
peculiarity  running  through  them  all  is  the  astonish- 
ing audacity  with  which  the  child  treats  the  most 
sacred  things.  He  or  she  seems  to  have  no  sense 
of  awe.  All  children  are  taught  to  believe  that  God 
resides  above  them  in  the  sky ;  and  I  shall  never 
forget  the  shock  of  surprise  I  felt  at  the  answer  of 
a  boy  of  five  years  —  whom  I  found  glorying  over  the 
treasures  of  his  first  paint-box  —  to  my  question : 
"  Which  color  do  you  like  best  ? "  "  Oh,"  he  carelessly 
replied,  "I  like  best  sky-blue,  —  God's  color."  And 
the  little  rogue  went  on,  daubing  the  paper  before 
him  with  a  mixture  of  all  colors,  utterly  unconscious 
that  he  had  said  anything  remarkable ;  and  yet  what 
Mrs.  Browning  specially  distinguishes  as  the  charac- 
teristic of  the  first  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  English 
poets,  Chaucer,  —  namely,  his  "  familiar  grasp  of  things 
Divine,"  —  could  not  have  found  a  more  appropriate 
illustration  than  in  this  chance  remark  of  a  mere 
child,  expressing  the  fearlessness  of  his  faith  in  the 
Almighty  Father  above  him. 

Now,  in  all  these  instinctive  operations  of  the 
imagination,  whether  in  the  mind  of  a  child  or  in 
that  of  a  grown  man,  it  is  easy  to  discern  the  mark 
of  sincerity.  If  the  child  is  petted,  and  urged  by  his 
mother  to  display  his  brightness  before  a  company 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          169 

of  other  mothers  and  other  babies,  he  is  in  danger 
of  learning  early  that  trick  of  falsehood,  which  clings 
to  him  when  he  goes  to  school,  when  he  leaves  the 
school  for  the  college,  and  when  he  leaves  the  college 
for  the  pursuits  of  professional  life.  The  farmer  or 
mechanic,  not  endowed  with  "  college  larnin',"  is  sure 
to  become  a  bad  declaimer,  perhaps  a  demagogue, 
when  he  abandons  those  natural  illustrations  and 
ornaments  of  his  speech  which  spring  from  his  indi- 
vidual experience,  and  strives  to  emulate  the  gran- 
diloquence of  those  graduates  of  colleges  who  have 
the  heathen  mythology  at  the  ends  of  their  fingers 
and  tongues,  and  can  refer  to  Jove,  Juno,  Minerva, 
Diana,  Yenus,  Vulcan,  and  Neptune,  as  though  they 
were  resident  deities  and  deesses  of  the  college  halls. 
The  trouble  with  most  "  uneducated  "  orators  is,  that 
they  become  enamoured  of  these  shining  gods  and 
goddesses  after  they  have  lost,  through  repetition, 
all  of  their  old  power  to  give  point  or  force  to  any 
good  sentence  of  modern  oratory.  During  the  times 
when,  to  be  a  speaker  at  Abolitionist  meetings,  the 
speaker  ran  the  risk  of  being  pelted  with  rotten  eggs, 
I  happened  to  be  present,  as  one  of  a  small  antislavery 
audience,  gathered  in  an  equally  small  hall.  Among 
the  speakers  was  an  honest,  strong-minded,  warm- 
hearted young  mechanic,  who,  as  long  as  he  was  true 
to  his  theme,  spoke  earnestly,  manfully,  and  well; 
but,  alas !  he  thought  he  could  not  close  without 
calling  in  some  god  or  goddess  to  give  emphasis  — 
after  the  method  of  college  students  —  to  his  previous 


170  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

statements.  He  selected,  of  course,  that  unfortunate 
phantom  whom  he  called  the  Goddess  of  Liberty. 
"Here,  in  Boston,"  he  thundered,  "where  she  was 
cradled  in  Faneuil  Hall,  can  it  be  that  Liberty  should 
be  trampled  under  foot,  when,  after  two  generations 
have  passed, — yes,  sir,  have  elapsed,  —  she  has  grown 
—  yes,  sir,  I  repeat  it,  has  grown  —  grown  up,  sir, 
into  a  great  man  ?  "  The  change  in  sex  was,  in  this 
case,  more  violent  than  usual;  but  how  many  in- 
stances occur  to  everybody's  recollection,  where  that 
poor  Goddess  has  been  almost  equally  outraged, 
through  a  puerile  ambition  on  the  part  of  the  orator 
to  endow  her  with  an  exceptional  distinction  by 
senseless  rhodomontade,  manufactured  by  the  word- 
machine  which  he  presumes  to  call  his  imagination ! 
All  imitative  imagery  is  the  grave  of  common-sense. 

Now  let  us  pass  to  an  imagination  which  is,  per- 
haps, the  grandest  in  American  oratory,  but  which 
was  as  perfectly  natural  as  that  of  the  "  cold  mo- 
lasses," or  "  God's  flat-iron,"  of  the  New  England 
farmer,  —  as  natural,  indeed,  as  the  "  sky-blue,  God's 
color,"  of  the  New  England  boy.  Daniel  Webster, 
standing  on  the  heights  of  Quebec  at  an  early  hour 
of  a  summer  morning,  heard  the  ordinary  morning 
drum-beat  which  called  the  garrison  to  their  duty. 
Knowing  that  the  British  possessions  belted  tfre 
globe,  the  thought  occurred  to  him  that  the  morning 
drum  would  go  on  beating  in  some  English  post  to 
the  time  when  it  would  sound  again  in  Quebec. 
Afterwards,  in  a  speech  on  President  Jackson's  Pro- 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          171 

test,  he  dwelt  on  the  fact  that  our  Revolutionary 
forefathers  engaged  in  a  war  with  Great  Britain  on 
a  strict  question  of  principle,  "  while  actual  suffering 
was  still  afar  off."  How  could  he  give  most  effect 
to  this  statement  ?  It  would  have  been  easy  for 
him  to  have  presented  statistical  tables,  showing 
the  wealth,  population,  and  resources  of  England, 
followed  by  an  enumeration  of  her  colonies  and 
military  stations,  all  going  to  prove  the  enormous 
strength  of  the  nation  against  which  the  United 
American  colonies  raised  their  improvised  flag.  But 
the  thought  which  had  heretofore  occurred  to  him  at 
Quebec  happily  recurred  to  his  mind  the  moment 
it  was  needed;  and  he  flashed  on  the  imagination 
an  image  of  British  power  which  no  statistics  could 
have  conveyed  to  the  understanding,  —  "a  power," 
he  said,  "  which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of  the 
whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and  military  posts  ; 
whose  morning  drum-beat,  following  the  sun,  and 
keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth 
with  one  continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  mar- 
tial airs  of  England."  Perhaps  a  mere  rhetorician 
might  consider  superfluous  the  word  "  whole,"  as 
applied  to  "  globe,"  and  "  unbroken,"  as  following 
"  continuous ; "  yet  they  really  add  to  the  force  and 
majesty  of  the  expression.  It  is  curious  that  in 
Great  Britain  this  magnificent  impersonation  of  the 
power  of  England  is  so  little  known.  It  is  certain 
that  it  is  unrivalled  in  British  patriotic  oratory.  Not 
Chatham,  not  even  Burke,  ever  approached  it  in  the 


172  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

noblest  passages  in  which  they  celebrated  the  great- 
ness and  glory  of  their  country.  Webster,  it  is 
to  be  noted,  introduced  it  in  his  speech,  not  for  the 
purpose  of  exalting  England,  but  of  exalting  our 
Revolutionary  forefathers,  whose  victory,  after  a  seven 
years'  war  of  terrible  severity,  waged  in  vindication 
of  a  principle,  was  made  all  the  more  glorious  from 
having  been  won  over  an  adversary  so  formidable 
and  so  vast. 

It  is  reported  that,  at  the  conclusion  of  this  speech 
on  the  President's  Protest  John  Sergeant,  of  Phila- 
delphia, came  up  to  the  orator,  and  after  cordially 
shaking  hands  with  him,  eagerly  asked,  "Where, 
Webster,  did  you  get  that  idea  of  the  morning  drum- 
beat ? "  Like  other  public  men,  accustomed  to  address 
legislative  assemblies,  he  was  naturally  desirous  of 
In  owing  the  place  —  if  place  there  was  —  where  such 
images  and  illustrations  were  to  be  found.  The  truth 
was  that,  if  Webster  had  ever  read  Goethe's  "  Faust," 

—  which  he  of  course  never  had  done,  —  he   might 
have  referred  his  old   friend  to  that  passage  where 
Faust,  gazing  at  the  setting  sun,  aches  to  follow  it 
in  its  course  forever.     "  See,"  he  exclaims,  "  how  the 
green-girt  cottages  shimmer  in  the  setting  sun !     He 
bends  and  sinks,  —  the  day  is  outlived.     Yonder  he 
hurries  off,  and  quickens  other  life.     Oh,  that  I  have 
no  wing  to  lift  me  from  the  ground,  to  struggle  after 

—  forever  after — him!     I  should  see,  in  everlasting 
evening  beams,  the   stilly  world  at  my  feet,  every 
height  on  fire,  every  vale  in  repose,  the  silver  brook 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          173 

flowing  into  golden  streams.  The  rugged  mountain, 
with  all  its  dark  defiles,  would  not  then  break  my 
godlike  course.  Already  the  sea,  with  its  heated 
bays,  opens  on  my  enraptured  sight.  Yet  the  god 
seems  at  last  to  sink  away.  But  the  new  impulse 
wakes.  I  hurry  on  to  drink  his  everlasting  light,  — 
the  day  before  me  and  the  night  behind,  —  and  under 
me  the  waves."  In  Faust,  the  wings  of  the  mind 
follow  the  setting  sun ;  in  Webster,  they  follow  the 
rising  sun ;  but  the  thought  of  each  circumnavigates 
the  globe,  in  joyous  companionship  with  the  same 
centre  of  life,  light,  and  heat, — though  the  sugges- 
tion which  prompts  the  sublime  idea  is  widely  dif- 
ferent. The  sentiment  of  Webster,  calmly  meditating 
on  the  heights  of  Quebec,  contrasts  strangely  with 
the  fiery  feeling  of  Faust,  raging  against  the  limita- 
tions of  his  mortal  existence.  A  humorist,  Charles 
Dickens,  who  never  read  either  Goethe  or  Webster, 
has  oddly  seized  on  the  same  general  idea :  "  The 
British  Empire,"  —  he  says,  in  one  of  his  novels, — 
"on  which  the  sun  never  sets,  and  where  the  tax- 
gatherer  never  goes  to  bed." 

This  celebrated  image  of  the  British  "  drum-beat " 
is  here  cited  simply  to  indicate  the  natural  way  in 
which  all  the  faculties  of  Webster  are  brought  into 
harmonious  co-operation  whenever  he  seriously  dis- 
cusses any  great  question.  His  understanding  and 
imagination,  when  both  are  roused  into  action,  always 
cordially  join  hands.  His  statement  of  facts  is  so 
combined  with  the  argument  founded  on  them,  that 


174  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

they  are  interchangeable ;  his  statement  having  the 
force  of  argument,  and  his  argument  having  the 
"  substantiality  "  which  properly  belongs  to  statement ; 
and  to  these  he  commonly  adds  an  imaginative  illus- 
tration, which  gives  increased  reality  to  both  state- 
ment and  argument.  In  rapidly  turning  over  the 
leaves  of  the  six  volumes  of  his  Works,  one  can  easily 
find  numerous  instances  of  this  instinctive  operation 
of  his  mind.  In  his  first  Bunker  Hill  oration  he 
announces  that  "  the  principle  of  free  governments 
adheres  to  the  American  soil.  It  is  bedded  in  it, 
immovable  as  its  mountains."  Again  he  says :  "  A 
call  for  the  representative  system,  wherever  it  is  not 
enjoyed,  and  where  there  is  already  intelligence 
enough  to  estimate  its  value,  is  perseveringly  made. 
Where  men  may  speak  out,  they  demand  it ;  where 
the  bayonet  is  at  their  throats,  they  pray  for  it." 
And  yet  again :  "  If  the  true  spark  of  religious  and 
civil  liberty  be  kindled,  it  will  burn.  Human  agency 
cannot  extinguish  it.  Like  the  earth's  central  fire,  it 
may  be  smothered  for  a  time ;  the  ocean  may  over- 
whelm it;  mountains  may  press  it  down,  —  but  its 
inherent  and  unconquerable  force  will  heave  both 
the  ocean  and  the  land,  and  at  some  time  or  other, 
in  some  place  or  other,  the  volcano  will  break  out, 
and  flame  up  to  heaven."  It  would  be  difficult  to 
find  in  any  European  literature  a  similar  embodiment 
of  an  elemental  sentiment  of  humanity,  in  an  image 
which  is  as  elemental  as  the  sentiment  to  which  it 
gives  vivid  expression. 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          175 

And  then  with  what  majesty,  with  what  energy, 
and  with  what  simplicity,  can  he  denounce  a  political 
transaction  which,  had  it  not  attracted  his  ire,  would 
hardly  have  survived  in  the  memory  of  his  country- 
men !  Thus,  in  his  Protest  against  Mr.  Benton's  Ex- 
punging Resolution,  speaking  for  himself  and  his 
Senatorial  colleague,  he  says :  "  We  rescue  our  own 
names,  character,  and  honor  from  all  participation  in 
this  matter ;  and  whatever  the  wayward  character  of 
the  times,  the  headlong  and  plunging  spirit  of  party 
devotion,  or  the  fear  or  the  love  of  power,  may  have 
been  able  to  bring  about  elsewhere,  we  desire  to  thank 
God  that  they  have  not,  as  yet,  overcome  the  love  of 
liberty,  fidelity  to  true  republican  principles,  and  a 
sacred  regard  for  the  Constitution  in  that  State  whose 
soil  was  drenched  to  a  mire  by  the  first  and  best  blood 
of  the  Revolution."  Perhaps  the  peculiar  power  of 
Webster  in  condemning  a  measure  by  a  felicitous  epi- 
thet, such  as  that  he  employs  in  describing  "  the 
plunging  spirit  of  party  devotion  "  was  never  more 
happily  exercised.  In  that  word  "  plunging  "  he  in- 
tended to  condense  all  his  horror  and  hatred  of  a 
transaction  which  he  supposed  calculated  to  throw  the 
true  principles  of  constitutional  government  into  a 
bottomless- abyss  of  personal  government,  where  right 
constitutional  principles  would  cease  to  have  exist- 
ence, as  well  as  cease  to  have  authority. 

There  is  one  passage  in  his  oration  at  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  which  may  be 
quoted  as  an  illustration  of  his  power  of  compact 


176  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

statement,  and  which  at  the  same  time  may  save 
readers  from  the  trouble  of  reading  many  excellent 
histories  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  Spanish 
dominion  in  America,  condensing,  as  it  does,  all  which 
such  histories  can  tell  us  in  a  few  smiting  sentences. 
"  Spain,"  he  says,  "  stooped  on  South  America  like 
a  vulture  on  its  prey.  Everything  was  force.  Terri- 
tories were  acquired  by  fire  and  sword.  Cities  were 
destroyed  by  fire  and  sword.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
of  human  beings  fell  by  fire  and  sword.  Even  con- 
version to  Christianity  was  attempted  by  fire  and 
sword."  One  is  reminded,  in  this  passage,  of  Macau- 
lay's  method  of  giving  vividness  to  his  confident  gen- 
eralization of  facts  by  emphatic  repetitions  of  the  same 
form  of  words.  The  repetition  of  "  fire  and  sword  " 
in  this  series  of  short,  sharp  sentences  ends  in  forc- 
ing the  reality  of  what  the  words  mean  on  the  dullest 
imagination;  and  the  climax  is  capped  by  affirming 
that  "  fire  -and  sword  "  were  the  means  by  which  the 
religion  of  peace  was  recommended  to  idolaters,  whose 
heathenism  was  more  benignant,  and  more  intrinsically 
Christian,  than  the  military  Christianity  which  was 
forced  upon  them. 

And  then  again,  how  easily  Webster's  imagination 
slips  in,  at  the  end  of  a  comparatively  bald  enumera- 
tion of  the  benefits  of  a  good  government,  to  vitalize 
the  statements  of  his  understanding !  "  Everywhere," 
he  says,  "  there  is  order,  everywhere  there  is  security. 
Everywhere  the  law  reaches  to  the  highest,  and  reaches 
to  the  lowest,  to  protect  all  in  their  rights,  and  to  re- 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          177 

strain  all  from  wrong  ;  and  over  all  hovers  liberty,  — 
that  liberty  for  which  our  fathers  fought  and  fell  on 
this  very  spot,  with  her  eye  ever  watchful,  and  her 
eagle  wing  ever  wide  outspread."  There  is  something 
astonishing  in  the  dignity  given  in  the  last  clause  of 
this  sentence  to  the  American  eagle, —  a  bird  so  de- 
graded by  the  rhodomontade  of  fifth-rate  declaimers, 
that  it  seemed  impossible  that  the  highest  genius  and 
patriotism  could  restore  it  to  its  primacy  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  air,  and  its  just  eminence  as  a  sym- 
bol of  American  liberty.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that 
Webster  here  alludes  to  "  the  bird  of  freedom  "  only 
as  it  appears  on  the  American  silver  dollar  that  passes 
daily  from  hand  to  hand,  where  the  watchful  eye  and 
the  outspread  wing  are  so  inartistically  represented 
that  the  critic  is  puzzled  to  account  for  the  grandeur 
of  the  image  which  the  orator  contrived  to  evolve 
from  the  barbaric  picture  on  the  ugliest  and  clumsiest 
of  civilized  coins. 

The  compactness  of  Webster's  statements  occasion- 
ally reminds  us  of  the  epigrammatic  point  which 
characterizes  so  many  of  the  statements  of  Burke. 
Thus,  in  presenting  a  memorial  to  Congress,  signed 
by  many  prominent  men  of  business,  against  President 
Jackson's  system  of  finance,  he  saw  at  once  that  the 
Democrats  would  denounce  it  as  another  manifesto  of 
the  "moneyed  aristocracy."  Accordingly  Webster 
introduced  the  paper  to  the  attention  of  the  Senate, 
with  the  preliminary  remark :  "  The  memorialists  are 
not  unaware  that,  if  rights  are  attacked,  attempts 

12 


178  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

will  be  made  to  render  odious  those  whose  rights  are 
violated.  Power  always  seeks  such  subjects  on  which 
to  try  its  experiments."  It  is  difficult  to  resist  the 
impression  that  Webster  must  have  been  indebted  to 
Burke  for  this  maxim.  Again  we  are  deluded  into  the 
belief  that  we  must  be  reading  Burke,  when  Webster 
refers  to  the  minimum  principle  as  the  right  one  to  be 
followed  in  imposing  duties  on  certain  manufactures. 
"  It  lays  the  impost,"  he  says,  u  exactly  where  it  will 
do  good,  and  leaves  the  rest  free.  It  is  an  intelligent, 
discerning,  discriminating  principle;  not  a  blind, 
headlong,  generalizing,  uncalculating  operation.  Sim- 
plicity, undoubtedly,  is  a  great  beauty  in  acts  of  legis- 
lation, as  well  as  in  the  works  of  art ;  but  in  both  it 
must  be  a  simplicity  resulting  from  congruity  of  parts 
and  adaptation  to  the  end  designed ;  not  a  rude  gen- 
eralization, which  either  leaves  the  particular  object 
unaccomplished,  or,  in  accomplishing  it,  accomplishes 
a  dozen  others  also,  which  were  not  desired.  It  is  a 
simplicity  wrought  out  by  knowledge  and  skill ;  not 
the  rough  product  of  an  undistinguishing,  sweeping 
general  principle." 

An  ingenuous  reader,  who  has  not  learned  from  his 
historical  studies  that  men  generally  act,  not  from 
arguments  addressed  to  their  understandings,  but 
from  vehement  appeals  which  rouse  their  passions  to 
defend  their  seeming  interests,  cannot  comprehend 
why  Webster's  arguments  against  Nullification  and 
Secession,  which  were  apparently  unanswerable,  and 
which  were  certainly  unanswered  either  by  Hayne  or 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          179 

Calhoun,  should  not  have  settled  the  question  in  de- 
bate between  the  North  and  the  South.  Such  a  reader, 
after  patiently  following  all  the  turns  and  twists  of 
the  logic,  all  the  processes  of  the  reasoning  employed 
on  both  sides  of  the  intellectual  contest,  would  natur- 
ally conclude  that  the  party  defeated  in  the  conflict 
would  gracefully  acknowledge  the  fact  of  its  defeat ; 
and,  as  human  beings,  gifted  with  the  faculty  of  reason, 
would  cheerfully  admit  the  demonstrated  results  of 
its  exercise.  He  would  find  it  difficult  to  comprehend 
why  the  men  who  were  overcome  in  a  fair  gladiatorial 
strife  in  the  open  arena  of  debate,  with  brain  pitted 
against  brain,  and  manhood  against  manhood,  should 
resort  to  the  rough  logic  of  "  blood  and  iron,"  when 
the  nobler  kind  of  logic,  that  which  is  developed  in 
the  struggle  of  mind  with  mind,  had  failed  to  accom- 
plish the  purposes  which  their  hearts  and  wills, 
independent  of  their  understandings,  were  bent  on 
accomplishing. 

It  may  be  considered  certain  that  so  wise  a  states- 
man as  Webster  —  a  statesman  whose  foresight  was 
so  palpably  the  consequence  of  his  insight,  and  whose 
piercing  intellect  was  so  admirably  adapted  to  read 
events  in  their  principles  —  never  indulged  in  such 
illusions  as  those  which  cheered  so  many  of  his  own 
adherents,  when  they  supposed  his  triumph  in  argu- 
mentation was  to  settle  a  matter  which  was  really 
based  on  organic  differences  in  the  institutions  of  the 
two  sections  of  the  Union.  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  while  the  Webster  men  were  glorying  in  his 


180  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

victory  over  Calhoun,  the  Calhoun  men  were  equally 
jubilant  in  celebrating  Calhoun's  victory  over  him. 
Which  of  them  had  the  better  in  the  argument  was  of 
little  importance  in  comparison  with  the  terrible  fact 
that  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  were  widening, 
year  by  year,  the  distance  which  separated  them  from 
the  people  of  the  Northern  States.  We  have  no 
means  of  judging  whether  Webster  clearly  foresaw  the 
frightful  Civil  War  between  the  two  sections,  which 
followed  so  soon  after  his  own  death.  We  only  know 
that  to  him  it  was  a  conflict  constantly  impending, 
and  which  could  be  averted  for  the  time  only  by  com- 
promises, concessions,  and  other  temporary  expedients. 
If  he  allowed  his  mind  to  pass  from  the  pressing  ques- 
tions of  the  hour,  and  to  consider  the  radical  division 
between  the  two  sections  of  the  country  which  were 
only  formally  united,  it  would  seem  that  he  must  have 
felt,  as  long  as  the  institution  of  negro  slavery  existed, 
that  he  was  only  laboring  to  postpone  a  conflict  which 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  prevent. 

But  my  present  purpose  is  simply  to  indicate  the 
felicity  of  Webster's  intrepid  assault  on  the  principles 
which  the  Southern  disunionists  put  forward  in  justi- 
fication of  their  acts.  Mr.  Calhoun's  favorite  idea 
was  this,  —  that  Nullification  was  a  conservative  prin- 
ciple, to  be  exercised  within  the  Union,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  a  just  interpretation  of  the  Constitution. 
"  To  begin  with  nullification,"  Webster  retorted, 
"  with  the  avowed  intent,  nevertheless,  not  to  proceed 
to  secession,  dismemberment,  and  general  revolution, 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          181 

is  as  if  one  were  to  take  the  plunge  of  Niagara,  and 
cry  out  that  he  would  stop  half-way  down.  In  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other,  the  rash  adventurer  must  go 
to  the  bottom  of  the  dark  abyss  below,  were  it  not 
that  the  abyss  has  no  discovered  bottom." 

How  admirable  also  is  his  exposure  of  the  distinc- 
tion attempted  to  be  drawn  between  secession,  as  a 
State  right  to  be  exercised  under  the  provisions  of 
what  was  called  "  the  Constitutional  Compact,"  and 
revolution.  "  Secession,"  he  says, "  as  a  revolutionary 
right,  is  intelligible ;  as  a  right  to  be  proclaimed  in 
the  midst  of  civil  commotions,  and  asserted  at  the 
head  of  armies,  I  can  understand  it.  But  as  a  practi- 
cal right,  existing  under  the  Constitution,  and  in  con- 
formity with  its  provisions,  it  seems  to  me  nothing 
but  a  plain  absurdity ;  for  it  supposes  resistance  to 
government,  under  the  authority  of  government  itself  ; 
it  supposes  dismemberment,  without  violating  the 
principles  of  union ;  it  supposes  opposition  to  law, 
without  crime ;  it  supposes  the  total  overthrow  of  gov- 
ernment, without  revolution." 

After  putting  some  pertinent  interrogatories  — 
which  are  arguments  in  themselves  —  relating  to  the 
inevitable  results  of  secession,  he  adds  that  "  every 
man  must  see  that  these  are  all  questions  which  can 
arise  only  after  a  revolution.  They  presuppose  the 
breaking  up  of  the  government.  While  the  Constitu- 
tion lasts,  they  are  repressed  ;  "  —  and  then,  with 
that  felicitous  use  of  the  imagination  as  a  handmaid 
of  the  understanding,  which  is  the  peculiar  charac- 


182  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

teristic  of  his  eloquence,  he  closes  the  sentence  by  say- 
ing that  "  they  spring  up  to  annoy  and  startle  us  only 
from  its  grave."  A  mere  reasoner  would  have  stopped 
at  the  word  "  repressed  ;  "  the  instantaneous  conver- 
sion of  "  questions "  into  spectres,  affrighting  and 
annoying  us  as  they  spring  up  from  the  grave  of  the 
Constitution,  —  which  is  also  by  implication  imper- 
sonated, —  is  the  work  of  Webster's  ready  imagina- 
tion ;  and  it  thoroughly  vitalizes  the  statements  which 
precede  it. 

A  great  test  of  the  sincerity  of  a  statesman's  style 
is  his  moderation.  Now,  if  we  take  the  whole  body 
of  Mr.  Webster's  speeches,  whether  delivered  in  the 
Senate  or  before  popular  assemblies,  during  the  period 
of  his  opposition  to  President  Jackson's  administra- 
tion, we  may  well  be  surprised  at  their  moderation 
of  tone  and  statement.  Everybody  old  enough  to 
recollect  the  singular  virulence  of  political  speech  at 
that  period  must  remember  it  as  disgraceful  equally 
to  the  national  conscience  and  the  national  under- 
standing. The  spirit  of  party,  always  sufficiently 
fierce  and  unreasonable,  was  then  stimulated  into  a 
fury  resembling  madness.  Almost  every  speaker, 
Democrat  or  Whig,  was  in  that  state  of  passion  which 
is  represented  by  the  physical  sign  of  "  foaming  at  the 
mouth."  Few  mouths  then  opened  that  did  not  im- 
mediately begin  to  "  foam."  So  many  fortunes  were 
suddenly  wrecked  by  President  Jackson's  financial 
policy,  and  the  business  of  the  country  was  so  disas- 
trously disturbed,  that,  whether  the  policy  was  right 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          183 

or  wrong,  those  who  assailed  and  those  who  defended 
it  seemed  to  be. equally  devoid  of  common  intellectual 
honesty.  "  I  do  well  to  be  angry  "  appears  to  have 
been  the  maxim  which  inspired  Democratic  and  Whig 
orators  alike  ;  and  what  reason  there  was  on  either 
side  was  submerged  in  the  lies  and  libels,  in  the  cal- 
umnies and  caricatures*  in  the  defamations  and  exe- 
crations, which  accompanied  the  citation  of  facts  and 
the  affirmation  of  principles.  Webster,  during  all 
this  time,  was  selected  as  a  shining  mark  at  which 
every  puny  writer  or  speaker  who  opposed  him  hurled 
his  small  or  large  contribution  of  verbal  rotten  eggs  ; 
and  yet  Webster  was  almost  the  only  Whig  statesman 
who  preserved  sanity  of  understanding  during  the 
whole  progress  of  that  political  riot,  in  which  the 
passions  of  men  became  the  masters  of  their  under- 
standings. Pious  Whig  fathers,  who  worshipped  the 
"  godlike  Daniel,"  went  almost  to  the  extent  of  teach- 
ing their  children  to  curse  Jackson  in  their  prayers  ; 
equally  pious  Democratic  fathers  brought  up  their 
sons  and  daughters  to  anathematize  the  fiend-like 
Daniel  as  the  enemy  of  human  rights ;  and  yet  in 
reading  Webster's  speeches,  covering  the  whole  space 
between  1832  and  1836,  we  can  hardly  find  a  state- 
ment which  an  historian  of  our  day  would  not  admit 
as  a  candid  generalization  of  facts,  or  an  argument 
which  would  not  stand  the  test  of  logical  examina- 
tion. Such  an  historian  might  entirely  disagree  with 
the  opinions  of  Webster ;  but  he  would  certainly 
award  to  him  the  praise  of  being  an  honest  reasoner 


184  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  an  honest  rhetorician,  in  a  time  when  reason  was 
used  merely  as  a  tool  of  party  passion,  and  when 
rhetoric  rushed  madly  into  the  worst  excesses  of 
rhodomontade. 

It  is  also  to  be  said  that  Webster  rarely  indulged 
in  personalities.  When  we  consider  how  great  were 
his  powers  of  sarcasm  and  invective,  how  constant 
were  the  provocations  to  exercise  them  furnished  by 
his  political  enemies,  and  how  atrociously  and  meanly 
allusions  to  his  private  affairs  were  brought  into  dis- 
cussions which  should  have  been  confined  to  refuting 
his  reasoning,  his  moderation  in  this  matter  is  to  be 
ranked  as  a  great  virtue.  He  could  not  take  a  glass 
of  wine  without  the  trivial  fact  being  announced  all 
over  the  country  as  indisputable  proof  that  he  was 
an  habitual  drunkard,  though  the  most  remarkable 
characteristic  of  his  speeches  is  their  temperance,  — 
their  "  total  abstinence "  from  all  the  intoxicating 
moral  and  mental  "  drinks  "  which  confuse  the  under- 
standing and  mislead  the  conscience.  He  could  not 
borrow  money  on  his  note  of  hand,  like  any  other 
citizen,  without  the  circumstance  being  trumpeted 
abroad  as  incontrovertible  evidence  that  Nick  Biddle 
had  paid  him  that  sum  to  defend  his  diabolical  Bank 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The  plain  fact 
that  his  speeches  were  confined  strictly  to  the  exposi- 
tion and  defence  of  sound  opinions  on  trade  and 
finance,  and  that  it  was  difficult  to  answer  them,  only 
confirmed  his  opponents  in  the  conviction  that  old 
Nick  was  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  His  great  intellect 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          185 

was  admitted ;  but  on  the  high,  broad  brow,  which 
was  its  manifestation  to  the  eye,  his  enemies  pasted 
the  words,  "  To  be  let,"  or  "  For  sale."  The  more 
impersonal  he  became  in  his  statements  and  argu- 
ments, the  more  truculently  was  he  assailed  by  the 
personalities  .  of  the  .  political  gossip  and  scandal- 
monger. Indeed,  from  the  time  he  first  came  to  the 
front  as  a  great  lawyer,  statesman,  and  patriot,  he 
was  fixed  upon  by  the  whole  crew  of  party  libellers 
as  a  man  whose  arguments  could  be  answered  most 
efficiently  by  staining  his  character.  He  passed 
through  life  with  his  head  enveloped  "  in  a  cloud  of 
poisonous  flies ; "  and  the  head  was  the  grandest- 
looking  head  that  had  ever  been  seen  on  the  Ameri- 
can continent.  It  was  so  pre-eminently  noble  and 
impressive,  and  promised  so  much  more  than  it  could 
possibly  perform,  that  only  one  felicitous  sarcasm  of 
party  malice,  among  many  thousands  of  bad  jokes, 
has  escaped  oblivion  ;  and  that  was  stolen  from 
Charles  Fox's  remark  on  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow, 
as  Fox  once  viewed  him  sitting  on  the  wool-sack, 
frowning  on  the  English  House  of  Lords,  which  he 
dominated  by  the  terror  of  his  countenance,  and  by 
the  fear  that  he  might  at  any  moment  burst  forth  in 
one  of  his  short,  bullying,  thundering  retorts,  should 
any  comparatively  weak  baron,  earl,  marquis,  or  duke 
dare  to  oppose  him.  "  Thurlow,"  said  Fox,  "  must  be 
an  impostor,  for  nobody  can  be  as  wise  as  he  looks." 
The  American  version  of  this  was,  "  Webster  must  be 
a  charlatan,  for  no  one  can  be  as  great  as  he  looks." 


186  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

But  during  all  the  time  that  his  antagonists  at- 
tempted to  elude  the  force  of  his  arguments  by  hunt- 
ing up  the  evidences  of  his  debts,  and  by  trying  to 
show  that  the  most  considerate,  the  most  accurate, 
and  the  most  temperate  of  his  lucid  statements  were 
the  products  of  physical  stimulants,  Webster  steadily 
kept  in  haughty  reserve  his  power  of  retaliation.  In 
his  speech  in  reply  to  Hayne  he  hinted  that  if  he 
were  imperatively  called  upon  to  meet  blows  with 
blows,  he  might  be  found  fully  equal  to  his  antago- 
nists in  that  ignoble  province  of  intellectual  pugilism ; 
but  that  he  preferred  the  more  civilized  struggle  of 
brain  with  brain,  in  a  contest  which  was  to  decide 
questions  of  principle.  In  the  Senate,  where  he 
could  meet  his  political  opponents  face  to  face,  few 
dared  to  venture  to  degrade  the  subject  in  debate 
from  the  discussion  of  principles  to  the  miserable 
subterfuge  of  imputing  bad  motives  as  a  sufficient 
answer  to  good  arguments ;  but  still  many  of  these 
dignified  gentlemen  smiled  approval  on  the  efforts  of 
the  low-minded,  small-minded  caucus-speakers  of  their 
party,  when  they  declared  that  Webster's  logic  was 
unworthy  of  consideration,  because  he  was  bought  by 
the  Bank,  or  bought  by  the  manufacturers  of  Massa- 
chusetts, or  bought  by  some  other  combination  of 
persons  who  were  supposed  to  be  the  deadly  enemies 
of  the  laboring-men  of  the  country.  On  some  rare 
occasions  Webster's  wrath  broke  out  in  such  smiting 
words  that  his  adversaries  were  cowed  into  silence, 
and  cursed  the  infatuation  which  had  led  them  to 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          187 

overlook  the  fact  that  the  "  logic-machine  "  had  in  it 
invectives  more  terrible  than  its  reasonings.  But 
generally  he  refrained  from  using  the  giant's  power 
"  like  a  giant ; "  and  it  is  almost  pathetic  to  remem- 
ber that  when  Mr.  Everett  undertook  to  edit,  in  1851, 
the  standard  edition  of  his  Works,  Webster  gave  direc- 
tions to  expunge  all  personalities  from  his  speeches, 
even  when  those  personalities  were  the  just  punish- 
ment of  unprovoked  attacks  on  his  integrity  as  a 
man.  Readers  will  look  in  vain,  in  this  edition  of  his 
Works,  for  some  of  the  most  pungent  passages  which 
originally  attracted  their  attention  in  the  first  report 
of  the  Defence  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington.  At  the 
time  these  directions  were  given,  Webster  was  himself 
the  object  of  innumerable  personalities,  which  were 
the  natural,  the  inevitable  results  of  his  speech  of  the 
7th  of  March,  1850. 

It  seems  to  be  a  law  that  the  fame  of  all  public 
men  shall  be  "half  disfame."  We  are  specially 
warned  to  beware  of  the  man  of  whom  all  men  speak 
well.  Burke,  complimenting  his  friend  Fox  for  risk- 
ing everything,  even  his  "  darling  popularity,"  on  the 
success  of  the  East  India  Bill,  nobly  says :  "  He  is 
traduced  and  abused  for  his  supposed  motives.  He 
will  remember  that  obloquy  is  a  necessary  ingredient 
in  all  true  glory ;  he  will  remember  that  it  was  not 
only  in  the  Roman  customs,  but  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
human  things,  that  calumny  and  abuse  are  essential 
parts  of  triumph." 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  Webster's  virtue  in 


188  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

this  general  abstinence  from  personalities  is  to  be 
offset  by  the  fact  that  he  could  throw  into  a  glance 
of  his  eye,  a  contortion  of  his  face,  a  tone  of  his  voice, 
or  a  simple  gesture  of  his  hand,  more  scorn,  con- 
tempt, and  hatred  than  ordinary  debaters  could  ex- 
press by  the  profuse  use  of  all  the  scurrilous  terms  in 
the  English  language.  Probably  many  a  sentence, 
which  we  now  read  with  an  even  pulse,  was,  as  origi- 
nally delivered,  accompanied  by  such  pointing  of  the 
finger,  or  such  flashing  of  the  eye,  or  such  raising  of 
the  voice,  that  the  seemingly  innocent  words  were 
poisoned  arrows  that  festered  in  the  souls  of  those 
against  whom  they  were  directed,  and  made  deadly 
enemies  of  a  number  of  persons  whom  he  seems,  in 
his  printed  speeches,  never  to  have  mentioned  with- 
out the  respect  due  from  one  senator  to  another.  In 
his  speech  in  Defence  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
he  had  to  repel  Mr.  Ingersoll's  indecent  attack  on  his 
integrity ;  and  his  dreadful  retort  is  described  by  those 
who  heard  it  as  coming  within  the  rules  which  con- 
demn cruelty  to  animals.  But  the  "  noble  rage " 
which  prompted  him  to  indulge  in  such  unwonted  in- 
vective subsided  with  the  occasion  that  called  it  forth, 
and  he  was  careful  to  have  it  expunged  when  the 
speech  was  reprinted.  An  eminent  judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Massachusetts,  in  commending  the 
general  dignity  and  courtesy  which  characterized 
Webster's  conduct  of  a  case  in  a  court  of  law,  noted 
one  exception.  "When,"  he  said, "the  opposite  coun- 
sel had  got  him  into  a  corner,  the  way  he  '  trampled 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.  189 

out '  was  something  frightful  to  behold.  The  Court 
itself  could  hardly  restrain  him  in  his  gigantic  efforts 
to  extricate  himself  from  the  consequences  of  a  blun- 
der or  an  oversight." 

Great  writers  and  orators  are  commonly  economists 
in  the  use  of  words.  They  compel  common  words  to 
bear  a  burden  of  thought  and  emotion  which  mere 
rhetoricians,  with  all  the  resources  of  the  language  at 
their  disposal,  would  never  dream  of  imposing  upon 
them.  But  it  is  also  to  be  observed  that  some  writers 
have  the  power  of  giving  a  new  and  special  significance 
to  a  common  word,  by  impressing  on  it  a  wealth  of 
meaning  which  it  cannot  claim  for  itself.  Three 
obvious  examples  of  this  peculiar  power  may  be  cited. 
Among  poets,  Chaucer  infused  into  the  simple  word 
"  green "  a  poetic  ecstasy  which  no  succeeding  Eng- 
lish poet,  not  even  Wordsworth,  has  ever  rivalled,  in 
describing  an  English  landscape  in  the  month  of  May. 
Jonathan  Edwards  fixed  upon  the  term  "  sweetness  " 
as  best  conveying  his  loftiest  conception  of  the  bliss 
which  the  soul  of  the  saint  can  attain  to  on  earth,  or 
expect  to  be  blessed  with  in  heaven;  but  not  one  of 
his  theological  successors  has  ever  caught  the  secret 
of  using  "  sweetness  "  in  the  sense  attached  to  it  by 
him.  Dr.  Barrow  gave  to  the  word  "  rest,"  as  em- 
bodying his  idea  of  the  spiritual  repose  of  the  soul 
fit  for  heaven,  a  significance  which  it  bears  in 
the  works  of  no  other  great  English  divine.  To  de- 
scend a  little,  Webster  was  fond  of  certain  words, 
commonplace  enough  in  themselves,  to  which  he 


190  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

insisted  on  imparting  a  more  than  ordinary  import. 
Two  of  these,  which  meet  us  continually  in  reading 
his  speeches,  are  "interesting"  and  "respectable." 
The  first  of  these  appears  to  him  competent  to  ex- 
press that  rapture  of  attention  called  forth  by  a  thing, 
an  event,  or  a  person,  which  other  writers  convey  by 
such  a  term  as  u  absorbing,"  or  its  numerous  equiv- 
alents. If  we  should  select  one  passage  from  his 
Works  which  more  than  any  other  indicates  his  power 
of  seeing  and  feeling,  through  a  process  of  purely 
imaginative  vision  and  sympathy,  it  is  that  portion  of 
his  Plymouth  oration  where  he  places  himself  and 
his  audience  as  spectators  on  the  barren  shore,  when 
the  "  Mayflower  "  came  into  view.  He  speaks  of  "  the 
interesting  group  upon  the  deck  "  of  the  little  vessel. 
The  very  word  suggests  that  we  are  to  have  a  very 
commonplace  account  of  the  landing  and  the  circum- 
stances which  followed  it.  In  an  instant,  however, 
we  are  made  to  "  feel  the  cold  which  benumbed,  and 
listen  to  the  winds  which  pierced  "  this  "  interesting  " 
group ;  and  immediately  after,  the  picture  is  flashed 
upon  the  imagination  of  "  chilled  and  shivering  child- 
hood, houseless  but  for  a  mother's  arms,  couchless 
but  for  a  mother's  breast,"  —  an  image  which  shows 
that  the  orator  had  not  only  transformed  himself  into 
a  spectator  of  the  scene,  but  had  felt  his  own  blood 
"  almost  freeze  "  in  intense  sympathy  with  the  physi- 
cal sufferings  of  the  shelterless  mothers  and  children. 
There  is  no  word  which  the  novelists,  satirists, 
philanthropic  reformers,  and  Bohemians  of  our  day 


AS  A  MASTER  OE  ENGLISH  STYLE.          191 

have  done  so  much  to  discredit,  and  make  ^-respect- 
able to  the  heart  and  the  imagination,  as  the  word 
"  respectable."  Webster  always  uses  it  as  a  term  of 
eulogy.  A  respectable  man  is,  to  his  mind,  a  person 
who  performs  all  his  duties  to  his  family,  his  country, 
and  his  God;  a  person  who  is  not  only  virtuous,  but 
who  has  a  clear  perception  of  the  relation  which  con- 
nects one  virtue  with  another  by  "  the  golden  thread" 
of  moderation,  and  who,  whether  he  be  a  man  of  ge- 
nius, or  a  business  man  of  average  talent,  or  an  intelli- 
gent mechanic,  or  a  farmer  of  sound  moral  and  mental 
character,  is  to  be  considered  "  respectable  "  because  he 
is  one  of  those  citizens  whose  intelligence  and  integ- 
rity constitute  the  foundation  on  which  the  Republic 
rests.  As  late  as  1843,  in  his  noble  oration  on  the 
completion  of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  he  de- 
clared that  if  our  American  institutions  had  done 
nothing  more  than  to  produce  the  character  of  Wash- 
ington, that  alone  would  entitle  them  to  the  respect  of 
mankind.  "  Washington  is  all  our  own  !  .  .  .  I  would 
cheerfully  put  the  question  to-day  to  the  intelligence 
of  Europe  and  the  world,  what  character  of  the  cen- 
tury, upon  the  whole,  stands  out  in  the  relief  of  his- 
tory most  pure,  most  respectable,  most  sublime  ;  and 
I  doubt  not,  that,  by  a  suffrage  approaching  to  una- 
nimity, the  answer  would  be  Washington!"  It  is 
needless  to  quote  other  instances  of  the  peculiar 
meaning  he  put  into  the  word  "  respectable,"  when 
we  thus  find  him  challenging  the  Europe  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  name  a  match  for  Washington, 


192  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  placing  "most  respectable"  after  "most  pure," 
and  immediately  preceding  "  most  sublime,"  in  his 
enumeration  of  the  three  qualities  in  which  Washing- 
ton surpassed  all  men  of  his  century. 

It  has  been  often  remarked  that  Webster  adapted 
his  style,  even  his  habits  of  mind  and  modes  of  rea- 
soning, to  the  particular  auditors  he  desired  to  influ- 
ence ;  but  that  whether  he  addressed  an  unorganized 
crowd  of  people,  or  a  jury,  or  a  bench  of  judges,  or 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  he  ever  proved  him- 
self an  orator  of  the  first  class.  His  admirers  com- 
monly confine  themselves  to  the  admirable  sagacity 
with  which  he  discriminated  between  the  kind  of 
reasoning  proper  to  be  employed  when  he  addressed 
courts  and  juries,  and  the  kind  of  reasoning  which  is 
most  effective  in  a  legislative  assembly.  The  lawyer 
and  the  statesman  were  in  Webster  kept  distinct, 
except  so  far  as  he  was  a  lawyer  who  had  argued 
before  the  Supreme  Court  questions  of  constitutional 
law.  An  amusing  instance  of  this  abnegation  of  the 
lawyer,  while  incidentally  bringing  in  a  lawyer's 
knowledge  of  judicial  decisions,  occurs  in  a  little 
episode  in  his  debate  with  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  1849,  as 
to  the  relation  of  Congress  to  the  Territories.  Mr. 
Calhoun  said  that  he  had  been  told  that  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  had  decided,  in  one  case, 
that  the  Constitution  did  not  extend  to  the  Terri- 
tories, but  that  he  was  "  incredulous  of  the  fact." 
"  Oh !  "  replied  Mr.  Webster,  "  I  can  remove  the  gen- 
tleman's incredulity  very  easily,  for  I  can  assure  him 


AS  A  MASTER  OE  ENGLISH  STYLE.          193 

that  the  same  thing  has  been  decided  by  the  United 
States  courts  over  and  over  again  for  the  last  thirty 
years."  It  will  be  observed,  however,  that  Mr.  Web- 
ster, after  communicating  this  important  item  of  in- 
formation, proceeded  to  discuss  the  question  as  if  the 
Supreme  Court  had  no  existence,  and  bases  his  argu- 
ment on  the  plain  terms  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
plain  facts  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  government 
established  by  it. 

Macaulay,  in  his  lively  way,  has  shown  the  difficulty 
of  manufacturing  English  statesmen  out  of  English 
lawyers,  though  as  lawyers  their  rank  in  the  profes- 
sion may  be  very  high.  "  Their  arguments,"  he  says, 
"  are  intellectual  prodigies,  abounding  with  the  hap- 
piest analogies  and  the  most  refined  distinctions.  The 
principles  of  their  arbitrary  science  being  once  admitted, 
the  statute-books  and  the  reports  being  once  assumed 
as  the  foundations  of  reasoning,  these  men  must  be 
allowed  to  be  perfect  masters  of  logic ;  but  if  a  ques- 
tion arises  as  to  the  postulates  on  which  their  whole 
system  rests,  if  they  are  called  upon  to  vindicate  the 
fundamental  maxims  of  that  system  which  they  have 
passed  their  lives  in  studying,  these  very  men  often 
talk  the  language  of  savages  or  of  children.  Those 
who  have  listened  to  a  man  of  this  class  in  his  own 
court,  and  who  have  witnessed  the  skill  with  which 
he  analyzes  and  digests  a  vast  mass  of  evidence,  or 
reconciles  a  crowd  of  precedents  which  at  first  sight 
seem  contradictory,  scarcely  know  him  again  when, 
a  few  hours  later,  they  hear  him  speaking  on  the  other 

13 


194  DANIEL  WEBSTEU 

side  of  Westminster  Hall  in  his  capacity  of  legislator. 
They  can  scarcely  believe  that  the  paltry  quirks  which 
are  faintly  heard  through  a  storm  of  coughing,  and 
which  do  not  impose  on  the  plainest  country  gentle- 
man, can  proceed  from  the  same  sharp  and  vigorous 
intellect  which  had  excited  their  admiration  under  the 
same  roof  and  on  the  same  day."  And  to  this  keen 
distinction  between  an  English  lawyer  and  an  English 
lawyer  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  may 
be  added  the  peculiar  kind  of  sturdy  manliness  which 
is  demanded  in  any  person  who  aims  to  take  a  leading 
part  in  Parliamentary  debates.  Erskine  —  probably 
the  greatest  advocate  who  ever  appeared  in  the  English 
courts  of  law  —  made  but  a  comparatively  poor  figure 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  as  a  member  of  the  Whig 
opposition.  "  The  truth  is,  Erskine,"  Sheridan  once 
said  to  him,  "  you  are  afraid  of  Pitt,  and  that  is  the 
flabby  part  of  your  character." 

But  Macaulay,  in  another  article,  makes  a  point 
against  the  leaders  of  party  themselves.  His  defini- 
tion of  Parliamentary  government  is  "  government  by 
speaking ; "  and  he  declares  that  the  most  effective 
speakers  are  commonly  ill-informed,  shallow  in 
thought,  devoid  of  large  ideas  of  legislation,  hazard- 
ing the  loosest  speculations  with  the  utmost  intellect- 
ual impudence,  and  depending  for  success  on  volubility 
of  speech  rather  than  on  accuracy  of  knowledge  or 
penetration  of  intelligence.  "  The  tendency  of  insti- 
tutions like  those  of  England,"  he  adds,  "  is  to  en- 
courage readiness  in  public  men,  at  the  expense  both 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          195 

of  fulness  and  of  exactness.  The  keenest  and  most 
vigorous  minds  of  every  generation,  minds  often  ad- 
mirably fitted  for  the  investigation  of  truth,  are  habit- 
ually employed  in  producing  arguments  such  as  no 
man  of  sense  would  ever  put  into  a  treatise  intended  for 
publication,  —  arguments  which  are  just  good  enough 
to  be  used  once,  when  aided  by  fluent  delivery  and 
pointed  language."  And  he  despairingly  closes  with 
the  remark  that  he  "  would  sooner  expect  a  great 
original  work  on  political  science  —  such  a  work, 
for  example,  as  the  '  Wealth  of  Nations '  —  from  an 
apothecary  in  a  country  town,  or  from  a  minister  in 
the  Hebrides,  than  from  a  statesman  who,  ever  since  he 
was  one-and-twenty,  had  been  a  distinguished  debater 
in  the  House  of  Commons." 

Now,  it  is  plain  that  neither  of  these  contemptuous 
judgments  applies  to  Webster.  He  was  a  great  law- 
yer ;  but  as  a  legislator  the  precedents  of  the  lawyer 
did  not  control  the  action  or  supersede  the  principles 
of  the  statesman.  He  was  one  of  the  most  formidable 
debaters  that  ever  appeared  in  a  legislative  assembly  ; 
and  yet  those  who  most  resolutely  grappled  with  him 
in  the  duel  of  debate  would  be  the  last  to  impute  to 
him  inaccuracy  of  knowledge  or  shallowness  of 
thought.  He  carried  into  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  a  trained  mind,  disciplined  by  the  sternest 
culture  of  his  faculties,  disdaining  any  plaudits  which 
were  not  the  honest  reward  of  robust  reasoning  on 
generalized  facts,  and  "  gravitating  "  in  the  direction 
of  truth,  whether  he  hit  or  missed  it.  In  his  case,  at 


196  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

least,  there  was  nothing  in  his  legal  experience,  or  in 
his  legislative  experience,  which  would  have  unfitted 
him  for  producing  a  work  on  the  science  of  politics. 
The  best  speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  Lord 
Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell  appear  very  weak 
indeed,  as  compared  with  the  "  Reply  to  Hayne,"  or  the 
speech  on  "  The  Constitution  not  a  Compact  between 
Sovereign  States,"  or  the  speech  on  the  President's 
Protest. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  said,  when  we  remem- 
ber the  hot  contests  between  the  two  men,  that  there 
is  something  plaintive  in  Calhoun's  dying  testimony 
to  Webster's  austere  intellectual  conscientiousness. 
Mr.  Yenables,  who  attended  the  South  Carolina  states- 
man in  his  dying  hours,  wrote  to  Webster:  "When 
your  name  was  mentioned,  he  remarked  that  '  Mr. 
Webster  has  as  high  a  standard  of  truth  as  any  states- 
man I  have  met  in  debate.  Convince  him,  and  he 
cannot  reply ;  he  is  silenced  ;  he  cannot  look  truth  in 
the  face  and  oppose  it  by  argument.  I  think  that  it 
can  be  readily  perceived  by  his  manner  when  he  felt 
the  unanswerable  force  of  a  reply.'  He  often  spoke 
of  you  in  my  presence,  and  always  kindly  and  most 
respectfully."  Now,  it  must  be  considered  that,  in 
debate,  the  minds  of  Webster  and  Calhoun  had  come 
into  actual  contact  and  collision.  Each  really  felt  the 
force  of  the  other.  An  ordinary  duel  might  be  ranked 
among  idle  pastimes  when  compared  with  the  stress 
and  strain  and  pain  of  their  encounters  in  the  duel  of 
debate.  A  sword-cut  or  pistol-bullet,  maiming  the 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          197 

body,  was  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  wounds 
they  mutually  inflicted  on  that  substance  which  was 
immortal  in  both.  It  was  a  duel,  or  series  of  duels, 
in  which  mind  was  opposed  to  mind,  and  will  to  will, 
and  where  the  object  appeared  to  be  to  inflict  moral 
and  mental  annihilation  on  one  of  the  combatants. 
There  never  passed  a  word  between  them  on  which 
the  most  ingenious  Southern  jurists,  in  their  interpre- 
tations of  the  "  code "  of  honor,  could  have  found 
matter  for  a  personal  quarrel ;  and  yet  these  two 
proud  and  strong  personalities  knew  that  they  were 
engaged  in  a  mortal  contest,  in  which  neither  gave 
quarter  nor  expected  quarter.  Mr.  Calhoun's  intel- 
lectual egotism  was  as  great  as  his  intellectual 
ability.  He  always  supposed  that  he  was  the  victor 
in  every  close  logical  wrestle  with  any  mind  to 
which  his  own  was  opposed.  He  never  wrestled  with 
a  mind,  until  he  met  Webster's,  which  in  tenacity, 
grasp,  and  power  was  a  match  for  his  own.  He,  of 
course,  thought  his  antagonist  was  beaten  by  his 
superior  strength  and  amplitude  of  argumentation ; 
but  it  is  still  to  be  noted  that  he,  the  most  redoubtable 
opponent  that  Webster  ever  encountered,  testified, 
though  in  equivocal  terms,  to  Webster's  intellectual 
honesty.  When  he  crept,  half  dead,  into  the  Senate- 
Chamber  to  hear  Webster's  speech  of  the  7th  of 
March,  1850,  he  objected  emphatically  at  the  end  to 
Webster's  declaration  that  the  Union  could  not  be 
dissolved.  After  declaring  that  Calhoun's  supposed 
case  of  justifiable  resistance  came  within  the  defini- 


198  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tion  of  the  ultimate  right  of  revolution,  which  is 
lodged  in  all  oppressed  communities,  Webster  added 
that  he  did  not  at  that  time  wish  to  go  into  a  discus- 
sion of  the  nature  of  the  United  States  government. 
"The  honorable  gentleman  and  myself,"  he  said, 
"  have  broken  lances  sufficiently  often  before  on  that 
subject."  "I  have  no  desire  to  do  it  now,"  replied 
Calhoun ;  and  Webster  blandly  retorted,  "  I  presume 
the  gentleman  has  not,  and  I  have  quite  as  little." 
One  is  reminded  here  of  Dr.  Johnson's  remark,  when 
he  was  stretched  on  a  sick-bed,  with  his  gladiatorial 
powers  of  argument  suspended  by  physical  exhaustion. 
"  If  that  fellow  Burke  were  now  present,"  the  Doctor 
humorously  murmured,  "  he  would  certainly  kill  me." 
But  to  what  has  been  said  of  Webster's  eminence  as 
a  lawyer  and  a  statesman  it  is  proper  to  add  that  he 
has  never  been  excelled  as  a  writer  of  State  papers 
among  the  public  men  of  the  United  States.  Mr. 
Emerson  has  a  phrase  which  is  exactly  applicable  to 
these  efforts  of  Webster's  mind.  That  phrase  is  "  su- 
perb propriety."  Throughout  his  despatches  he  always 
seems  to  feel  that  he  impersonates  his  country ;  and 
the  gravity  and  weight  of  his  style  are  as  admirable  as 
its  simplicity  and  majestic  ease.  u  Daniel  Webster, 
his  mark,"  is  indelibly  stamped  on  them  all.  When 
the  Treaty  of  Washington  was  criticised  by  the  Whigs 
in  the  English  Parliament,  Macaulay  specially  noticed 
the  difference  in  the  style  of  the  two  negotiators. 
Lord  Ashburton,  he  said,  had  compromised  the  honor 
of  his  country  by  "  the  humble,  caressing,  wheedling 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          199 

tone"  of  his  letters, — a  tone  which  contrasted  strangely 
with  "  the  firm,  resolute,  vigilant,  and  unyielding  man- 
ner "  of  the  American  Secretary  of  State.  It  is  to  be 
noticed  that  no  other  opponent  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's 
administration  —  not  even  Lord  Palmerston  and 
Lord  John  Russell  —  struck  at  the  essential  weakness 
of  Lord  Ashburton's  despatches  with  the  force  and 
sagacity  which  characterized  Macaulay's  assault  on 
the  treaty.  Indeed,  a  rhetorician  and  critic  less  skil- 
ful than  Macaulay  can  easily  detect  that  "  America  " 
is  represented  fully  in  Webster's  despatches,  while 
"  Britannia  "  has  a  very  amiable,  but  not  very  forcible, 
representative  in  Lord  Ashburton.  Had  Palmerston 
been  the  British  plenipotentiary,  we  can  easily  imagine 
how  different  would  have  been  the  task  imposed  on 
Webster.  As  the  American  Secretary  was  generally  in 
the  right  in  every  position  he  assumed,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  triumphed  even  over  Palmerston ;  but  the  let- 
ters of  the  "pluckiest"  of  English  statesmen  would, 
we  may  be  sure,  have  never  been  criticised  in  the  House 
of  Commons  as  "  humble,  wheedling,  and  caressing." 
In  addition,  however,  to  his  legal  arguments,  his 
senatorial  speeches,  and  his  State  papers,  Webster  is 
to  be  considered  as  the  greatest  orator  our  country 
has  produced,  in  his  addresses  before  miscellaneous 
assemblages  of  the  people.  In  saying  this  we  do  not 
confine  the  remark  to  such  noble  orations  as  those 
on  the  "First  Settlement  of  New  England,"  "The 
Bunker  Hill  Monument,"  and  "Adams  and  Jeffer- 
son," but  extend  it  so  as  to  include  speeches  before 


200  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

great  masses  of  people  who  could  be  hardly  distin- 
guished from  a  mob,  and  who  were  under  no  restraint 
but  that  imposed  by  their  own  self-respect  and  their 
respect  for  the  orator.  On  these  occasions  he  was 
uniformly  successful.  It  is  impossible  to  detect,  in 
any  reports  of  these  popular  addresses,  that  he  ever 
stooped  to  employ  a  style  of  speech  or  mode  of  argu- 
ment commonly  supposed  appropriate  to  a  speaker  on 
the  "  stump  ;  "  and  yet  he  was  the  greatest  "  stump  " 
orator  that  our  country  has  ever  seen.  He  seemed  to 
delight  in  addressing  five  or  ten  or  even  twenty  thou- 
sand people,  in  the  open  air,  trusting  that  the  pene- 
trating tones  of  his  voice  would  reach  even  the  ears 
of  those  who  were  on  the  ragged  edges  of  the  sway- 
ing crowd  before  him  ;  and  he  would  thus  speak  to 
the  sovereign  people,  in  their  unorganized  state  as  a 
collection  of  uneasy  and  somewhat  belligerent  individ- 
uals, with  a  dignity  and  majesty  similar  to  the  dignity 
and  majesty  which  characterized  his  arguments  be- 
fore the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  or  before  a  bench 
of  judges.  A  large  portion  of  his  published  Works 
consists  of  such  speeches,  and  they  rank  only  second 
among  the  remarkable  productions  of  his  mind. 

The  question  arises,  How  could  he  hold  the  at- 
tention of  such  audiences  without  condescending  to 
flatter  their  prejudices,  or  without  occasionally  acting 
the  part  of  the  sophist  and  the  buffoon  ?  Much  may 
be  said,  in  accounting  for  this  phenomenon,  about  his 
widely  extended  reputation,  his  imposing  presence, 
the  vulgar  curiosity  to  see  a  man  whom  even  the 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          201 

smallest  country  newspaper  thought  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  defame,  his  power  of  giving  vitality  to 
simple  words  which  the  most  ignorant  of  his  auditors 
could  easily  understand,  and  the  instinctive  respect 
which  the  rudest  kind  of  men  feel  for  a  grand  speci- 
men of  robust  manhood.  But  the  real,  the  substan- 
tial source  of  his  power  over  such  audiences  proceeded 
from  his  respect  for  them  ;  and  their  respect  for  him 
was  more  or  less  consciously  founded  on  the  percep- 
tion of  this  fact. 

Indeed,  a  close  scrutiny  of  his  speeches  will  show 
how  conscientiously  he  regards  the  rights  of  other 
minds,  however  inferior  they  may  be  to  his  own  ;  and 
this  virtue  — for  it  is  a  virtue  —  is  never  more  apparent 
than  in  his  arguments  and  appeals  addressed  to  popu- 
lar assemblies.  No  working-man,  whether  farmer, 
mechanic,  factory  "  hand,"  or  day-laborer,  ever  deemed 
himself  insulted  by  a  word  from  the  lips  of  Daniel 
Webster;  he  felt  himself  rather  exalted  in  his  own 
esteem,  for  the  time,  by  coming  in  contact  with  that 
beneficent  and  comprehensive  intelligence,  which 
cherished  among  its  favorite  ideas  a  scheme  for  lift- 
ing up  the  American  laborer  to  a  height  of  comfort 
and  respectability  which  the  European  laborer  could 
hardly  hope  to  attain.  Prominent  politicians,  men 
of  wealth  and  influence,  statesmen  of  high  social  and 
political  rank,  may  at  times  have  considered  Web- 
ster as  arrogant  and  bad-tempered,  and  may  at 
times  have  felt  disposed  to  fasten  a  quarrel  upon 
him ;  even  in  Massachusetts  this  disposition  broke 


202  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

out  in  conventions  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged  ; 
but  it  would  be  in  vain  to  find  a  single  laboring-man, 
whether  he  met  Webster  in  private,  or  half  pushed 
and  half  fought  his  way  into  a  mass  meeting  in  order 
to  get  his  ears  into  communication  with  the  orator's 
voice,  who  ever  heard  a  word  from  him  which  did  not 
exalt  the  dignity  of  labor,  or  which  was  not  full  of 
sympathy  for  the  laborer's  occasional  sorrows  and 
privations.  Webster  seemed  to  have  ever  present  to 
his  mind  the  poverty  of  the  humble  home  of  his 
youth.  His  father,  his  brothers,  he  himself,  had  all 
been  brought  up  to  consider  manual  toil  a  dignified 
occupation,  and  as  consistent  with  the  exercise  of  all 
the  virtues  which  flourish  under  the  domestic  roof. 
More  than  this,  it  may  be  said  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  intimate  friends,  his  sympathies  to  the 
last  were  most  warmly  with  common  laborers.  In- 
deed, if  we  closely  study  the  private  correspondence 
of  this  statesman,  who  was  necessarily  brought  into 
relations  more  or  less  friendly  with  the  convention- 
ally great  men  of  the  world,  European  as  well  as 
American,  we  shall  find  that,  after  all,  he  took  more 
real  interest  in  Seth  Peterson  and  John  Taylor  and 
Porter  Wright,  men  connected  with  him  in  fishing 
and  farming,  than  he  did  in  the  ambassadors  of 
foreign  States  whom  he  met  as  Senator  or  as  Secre- 
tary of  State,  or  in  all  the  members  of  the  polite 
society  of  Washington,  New  York,  and  Boston.  He 
was  very  near  to  Nature  himself ;  and  the  nearer  a 
man  was  to  Nature,  the  more  he  esteemed  him. 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          203 

Thus  persons  who  superintended  his  farms  and  cattle, 
or  who  pulled  an  oar  in  his  boat  when  he  ventured 
out  in  search  of  cod  and  halibut,  thought  "  Squire 
Webster  "  a  man  who  realized  their  ideal  and  perfec- 
tion of  good-fellowship  ;  while  it  may  confidently  be 
said  that  many  of  his  closest  friends  among  men  of 
culture,  including  lawyers,  men  of  letters,  and  states- 
men of  the  first  rank,  must  have  occasionally  re- 
sented  the  "  anfractuosities  "  of  his  mood  and  temper. 
But  Seth  Peterson  and  Porter  Wright  and  John 
Taylor  never  complained  of  these  "  anfractuosities." 
Webster,  in  fact,  is  one  of  the  few  public  men  of  the 
country  in  whose  championship  of  the  rights  and 
sympathy  with  the  wrongs  of  labor  there  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  arts  of  the  demagogue ;  and  in 
this  fact  we  may  find  the  reason  why  even  the 
"  roughs,"  who  are  present  in  every  mass  meeting, 
always  treated  him  with  respect.  Perhaps  it  would 
not  be  out  of  place  to  remark  here,  that  in  his  speech 
of  the  7th  of  March  he  missed  a  grand  opportunity 
to  vindicate  Northern  labor,  in  the  reference  he  made 
to  a  foolish  tirade  of  a  senator  from  Louisiana,  who 
"  took  pains  to  run  a  contrast  between  the  slaves  of 
the  South  and  the  laboring  people  of  the  North, 
giving  the  preference,  in  all  points  of  condition,  of 
comfort,  and  happiness,  to  the  slaves  of  the  South." 
Webster  made  a  complete  reply  to  this  aspersion  on 
Northern  labor ;  but  as  his  purpose  was  to  conciliate, 
he  did  not  blast  the  libeller  by  quoting  the  most  emi- 
nent example  that  could  be  named  demonstrating  the 


204  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

falsehood  of  the  *  slave-holding  senator's  assertion. 
Without  deviating  from  the  conciliatory  attitude  he 
had  assumed,  one  could  easily  imagine  him  as  lifting 
his  large  frame  to  its  full  height,  flashing  from  his 
rebuking  eyes  a  glance  of  scorn  at  the  "  amiable 
Senator,"  and  simply  saying,  "  I  belong  to  the  class 
which  the  Senator  from  Louisiana  stigmatizes  as  more 
degraded  than  the  slaves  of  the  South."  There  was 
not  at  the  time  any  senator  from  the  South,  except 
Mr.  Calhoun,  that  the  most  prejudiced  Southern  man 
would  have  thought  of  comparing  with  Webster  in 
respect  to  intellectual  eminence  ;  and  if  Webster  had 
then  and  there  placed  himself  squarely  on  his  position 
as  the  son  of  a  Northern  laborer,  we  should  have  been 
spared  all  the  rhetoric  about  Northern  "  mud-sills," 
with  which  the  Senate  was  afterwards  afflicted. 
Webster  was  our  man  of  men  ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  he  should  have  crushed  such  talk  at  the  outset, 
by  proudly  assuming  that  Northern  labor  was  embod- 
ied and  impersonated  in  him,  —  that  Tie  had  sprung 
from  its  ranks,  and  was  proud  of  his  ancestry. 

An  ingenious  and  powerful,  but  paradoxical  thinker 
once  told  me  that  I  was  mistaken  in  calling  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  Daniel  Webster  great  reasoners.  "  They 
were  bad  reasoners,"  he  added,  "but  great  poets." 
Without  questioning  the  right  of  the  author  of  "  An 
Enquiry  into  the  Modern  Prevailing  Notion  of  that 
Freedom  of  the  Will,  which  is  supposed  to  be  Essen- 
tial to  Moral  Agency,"  to  be  ranked  among  the  most 
eminent  of  modern  logicians,  I  could  still  understand 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          205 

why  he  was  classed  among  poets;  for  whether  Ed- 
wards paints  the  torments  of  hell  or  the  bliss  of 
heaven,  his  imagination  almost  rivals  that  of  Dante 
in  intensity  of  realization.  But  it  was  at  first  puz- 
zling to  comprehend  why  Webster  should  be  depressed 
as  a  reasoner  in  order  to  be  exalted  as  a  poet.  The 
images  and  metaphors  scattered  over  his  speeches 
are  so  evidently  brought  in  to  illustrate  and  enforce 
his  statements  and  arguments,  that,  grand  as  they 
often  are,  the  imagination  displayed  in  them  is  still 
a  faculty  strictly  subsidiary  to  the  reasoning  power. 
It  was  only  after  reflecting  patiently  for  some  time 
on  the  seeming  paradox  that  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  my 
friend's  meaning ;  and  it  led  me  at  once  to  consider 
an  entirely  novel  question,  not  heretofore  mooted 
by  any  of  Webster's  critics,  whether  friendly  or  un- 
friendly, in  their  endeavors  to  explain  the  reason  of 
his  influence  over  the  best  minds  of  the  generation 
to  which  he  belonged.  In  declaring  that,  as  a  poet, 
he  far  exceeded  any  capacity  he  evinced  as  a  reasoner, 
my  paradoxical  friend  must  have  meant  that  Webster 
had  the  poet's  power  of  so  organizing  a  speech  that 
it  stood  out  to  the  eye  of  the  mind  as  a  palpable 
intellectual  product  and  fact,  possessing  not  merely 
that  vague  reality  which  comes  from  erecting  a  plausi- 
ble mental  structure  of  deductive  argumentation,  based 
on  strictly  limited  premises,  but  a  positive  reality 
akin  to  the  products  of  Nature  herself,  when  she  tries 
her  hand  in  constructing  a  ledge  of  rocks  or  rearing 
a  chain  of  hills. 


206  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  illustration,  it  may  be  well  to  cite  the  example 
of  poets  with  whom  Webster,  of  course,  cannot  be 
compared.  Among  the  great  mental  facts,  palpable 
to  the  eyes  of  all  men  interested  in  literature,  are 
such  creations  as  the  Iliad,  the  "  Divine  Comedy,"  the 
great  Shakspearian  dramas,  the  "  Paradise  Lost,"  and 
"  Faust."  The  commentaries  and  criticisms  on  these 
are  numerous  enough  to  occupy  the  shelves  of  a  large 
library ;  some  of  them  attempt  to  show  that  Homer, 
Dante,  Shakspeare,  Milton,  and  Goethe  were  all  wrong 
in  their  methods  of  creation  ;  but  they  still  cannot  ob- 
scure, to  ordinary  vision,  the  lustre  of  these  luminaries 
as  they  placidly  shine  in  the  intellectual  firmament, 
which  is  literally  over  our  heads.  They  are  as  palpa- 
ble to  the  eye  of  the  mind  as  Sirius,  Arcturus,  the 
Southern  Cross,  and  the  planets  Venus,  Mars,  Jupiter, 
and  Saturn  are  to  the  bodily  sense.  M.  Taine  has 
recently  assailed  the  "  Paradise  Lost "  with  the  happi- 
est of  French  epigrams ;  he  tries  to  prove  that,  in 
construction,  it  is  the  most  ridiculously  inartistic  mon- 
strosity that  the  imagination  of  a  great  'mind  ever 
framed  out  of  chaos;  but  after  we  have  thoroughly 
enjoyed  the  play  of  his  wit, there  the  "Paradise  Lost" 
remains,  an  undisturbed  object  in  the  intellectual 
heavens,  disdaining  to  justify  its  right  to  exist  on  any 
other  grounds  than  the  mere  fact  of  its  existence ; 
and,  certainly,  not  more  ridiculous  than  Saturn  him- 
self, as  we  look  at  him  through  a  great  equatorial 
telescope,  swinging  through  space  encumbered  with 
his  clumsy  ring,  and  his  wrangling  family  of  satel- 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          207 

lites,  but  still,  in  spite  of  peculiarities  on  which  M. 
Taine  might  exercise  his  wit  until  doomsday,  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  sublime  objects  which  the 
astronomer  can  behold  in  the  whole  phenomena  of 
the  heavens. 

Indeed,  in  reading  criticisms  on  such  durable  poetic 
creations  and  organizations  as  we  have  named,  one 
is  reminded  of  Sydney  Smith's  delicious  chaffing  of 
his  friend  Jeffrey,  on  account  of  Jeffrey's  sensitive- 
ness of  literary  taste,  and  his  inward  rage  that  events, 
men,  and  books,  outside  of  him,  do  not  correspond 
to  the  exacting  rules  which  are  the  products  of  his 
own  subjective  and  somewhat  peevish  intelligence. 
"  I  like,"  says  Sydney,  "  to  tell  you  these  things, 
because  you  never  do  so  well  as  when  you  are  hum- 
bled and  frightened ;  and  if  you  could  be  alarmed  into 
the  semblance  of  modesty,  you  would  charm  everybody. 
But  remember  my  joke  against  you  about  the  moon  : 
'  D — n  the  solar  system !  bad  light  —  planets  too  dis- 
tant —  pestered  with  comets  —  feeble  contrivance ; 
could  make  a  better  with  great  ease.' " 

Now,  when  a  man,  in  whatever  department  or  direc- 
tion of  thought  his  activity  is  engaged,  succeeds  in 
organizing,  or  even  welding  together,  the  materials 
on  which  he  works,  so  that  the  product,  as  a  whole, 
is  visible  to  the  mental  eye  as  a  new  creation  or 
construction,  he  has  an  immense  advantage  over  all 
critics  of  his  performance.  Refined  reasonings  are 
impotent  to  overthrow  it;  epigrams  glance  off  from 
it  as  rifle-bullets  rebound  when  aimed  at  a  granite 


208  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

wall;  and  it  stands  erect  long  after  the  reasonings 
and  the  epigrams  are  forgotten.  Even  when  its  sym- 
metry is  destroyed  by  a  long  and  destructive  siege, 
a  pile  of  stones  still  remains,  as  at  Fort  Sumter,  to 
attest  what  power  of  resistance  it  opposed  to  all  the 
resources  of  modern  artillery. 

If  we  look  at  Webster's  greatest  speeches,  as,  for 
instance,  "  The  Reply  to  Hayne,"  "  The  Constitution 
not  a  Compact  between  Sovereign  States,"  "  The 
President's  Protest,"  and  others  that  might  be  men- 
tioned, we  shall  find  that  they  partake  of  the  char- 
acter of  organic  formations,  or  at  least  of  skilful 
engineering  or  architectural  constructions.  Even  Mr. 
Calhoun  never  approached  him  in  this  art  of  giving 
objective  reality  to  a  speech,  which,  after  all,  is  found, 
on  analysis,  to  consist  only  of  a  happy  collocation 
and  combination  of  words ;  but  in  Webster  the  words 
are  either  all  alive  with  the  creative  spirit  of  the  poet, 
or,  at  the  worst,  resemble  the  blocks  of  granite  or 
marble  which  the  artisan  piles,  one  on  the  other,  and 
the  result  of  which,  though  it  may  represent  a  poor 
style  of  architecture,  is  still  a  rude  specimen  of  a 
Gothic  edifice.  The  artist  and  artificer  are  both 
observable  in  Webster's  work ;  but  the  reality  and 
solidity  of  the  construction  cannot  be  questioned. 
At  the  present  time  an  educated  reader  would  be 
specially  interested  in  the  mental  processes  by  which 
Webster  thus  succeeded  in  giving  objective  existence 
and  validity  to  the  operations  of  his  mind;  and, 
whether  sympathizing  with  his  opinions  or  not,  would 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          209 

as  little  think  of  refusing  to  read  them  because  of 
their  Whiggism,  as  he  would  think  of  refusing  to 
read  Homer  because  of  his  heathenism,  or  Dante 
because  of  his  Catholicism,  or  Milton  because  of  his 
compound  of  Arianism  and  Calvinism,  or  Goethe 
because  of  his  Pantheism.  The  fact  which  would 
most  interest  such  a  reader  would  be,  that  Webster 
had  in  some  mysterious  way  translated  and  trans- 
formed his  abstract  propositions  into  concrete  sub- 
stance and  form.  The  form  might  offend  his  reason, 
his  taste,  or  his  conscience ;  but  he  could  not  avoid 
admitting  that  it  had  a  form,  while  most  speeches, 
even  those  made  by  able  men,  are  comparatively 
formless,  however  lucid  they  may  be  in  the  array 
of  facts,  and  plausible  in  the  order  and  connection 
of  arguments. 

In  trying  to  explain  this  power,  the  most  obvious 
comparison  which  would  arise  in  the  mind  of  an 
intelligent  reader  would  be,  that  Webster,  as  a  rheto- 
rician, resembled  Yauban  and  Cohorn  as  military 
engineers.  In  the  war  of  debate,  he  so  fortified  the 
propositions  he  maintained,  that  they  could  not  be 
carried  by  direct  assault,  but  must  be  patiently  be- 
sieged. The  words  he  employed  were  simple  enough, 
and  fell  short  of  including  the  vocabulary  of  even 
fifth-rate  declaimers ;  but  he  had  the  art  of  so  dis- 
posing them,  that  to  an  honest  reasoner  the  position 
he  took  appeared  to  be  impregnable.  To  assail  it 
by  the  ordinary  method  of  passionate  protest  and 
illogical  reasoning,  was  as  futile  as  a  dash  of  light 

14 


210  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

cavalry  would  have  been  against  the  defences  of 
such  cities  as  Namur  and  Lille.  Indeed,  in  his 
speech,  "The  Constitution  not  a  Compact  between 
Sovereign  States,"  he  erected  a  whole  Torres  Yedras 
line  of  fortifications,  on  which  legislative  Massenas 
dashed  themselves  in  vain,  and,  however  strong  in 
numbers  in  respect  to  the  power  of  voting  him  down, 
recoiled  defeated  in  every  attempt  to  reason  him  down. 
In  further  illustration  of  this  peculiar  power  of 
Webster,  the  speech  of  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  may 
be  cited;  for  its  delivery  is  to  be  ranked  with  the 
most  important  historical  events.  For  some  years 
it  was  the  object  of  the  extremes  of  panegyric  and 
the  extremes  of  execration.  But  this  effort  is  really 
the  most  loosely  constructed  of  all  the  great  produc- 
tions of  Webster's  mind.  In  force,  compactness,  and 
completeness,  in  closeness  of  thought  to  things,  in 
closeness  of  imagery  to  the  reasoning  it  illustrates, 
and  in  general  intellectual  fibre,  muscle,  and  bone, 
it  cannot  be  compared  to  such  an  oration  as  that  on 
the  "First  Settlement  of  New  England,"  or  such  a 
speech  as  that  which  had  for  its  theme  "  The  Con- 
stitution not  a  Compact  between  Sovereign  States ; " 
but,  after  all  deductions  have  been  made,  it  was  still 
a  speech  which  frowned  upon  its  opponents  as  a  kind 
of  verbal  fortress  constructed  both  for  the  purpose 
of  defence  and  aggression.  Its  fame  is  due,  in  a 
great  degree,  to  its  resistance  to  a  storm  of  assaults, 
such  as  had  rarely  before  been  concentrated  on  any 
speech  delivered  in  either  branch  of  the  Congress  of 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          211 

the  United  States.     Indeed,  a  very  large  portion  of 
the  intellect,  the   moral   sentiment,   and   the   moral 
passion  of  the  free  States  was  directed  against  it. 
There  was  not  a  weapon  in  the  armory  of  the  dialec- 
tician  or  the   rhetorician  which  was   not  employed 
with    the   intent   of    demolishing  it.      Contempt  of 
Webster  was  vehemently  taught  as  the  beginning 
of  political  wisdom.     That  a  speech  thus   assailed 
should  survive  the  attacks  made  upon  it,  appeared 
to  be  impossible.     And  yet  it  did  survive,  and  is  alive 
now,  while  better   speeches  —  or  what  the  present 
writer  thought  at  the  time  to   be   more  convincing 
speeches  —  have   not   retained    individual   existence, 
however  deeply  they  may  have  influenced  that  public 
opinion  which,  in  the  end,  determines  political  events. 
"  I  still  live,"  was  Webster's  declaration  on  his  death- 
bed, when  the   friends  gathered  around  it  imagined 
he  had  breathed  his  last ;  and  the  same  words  might 
be  uttered  by  the  speech  of  the  7th  of  March,  could 
it  possess  the  vocal  organ  which  announces  personal 
existence.     Between  the  time  when  it  was  originally 
delivered  and  the  present  year  there  runs  a  great  and 
broad  stream  of  blood,  shed  from  the  veins  of  North- 
ern  and   Southern   men   alike ;   the  whole   political 
and  moral  constitution  of  the  country  has  practically 
suffered   an   abrupt   change ;   new  problems   engage 
the  attention  of  thoughtful  statesmen ;  much  is  for- 
gotten which  was   once   considered  of  the  first  im- 
portance,—  but  the  7th  of  March  Speech,  battered  as 
it  is  by  innumerable  attacks,  is  still  remembered  at 


212  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

least  as  one  which  called  forth  more  power  than  it 
embodied  in  itself.  This  persistence  of  life  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  it  was  "  organized." 

Is  this  power  of  organization  common  among  ora- 
tors ?    It  seems  to  me  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  very 
rare.     In   some   of   Burke's  speeches,  in   which  his 
sensibility  and  imagination   were  thoroughly  under 
the  control  of  his  judgment,  —  as,  for  instance,  in  his 
speech  on  Conciliation  with  America,  that  on  Eco- 
nomical Reform,  and  that  to  the  Electors  of  Bristol, — 
we  find  the  orator  to  be  a  consummate  master  of  the 
art  of  so  constructing  a  speech  that  it  serves  the  im- 
mediate object  which  prompted  its  delivery,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  has  in  it  a  principle  of  vitality  which 
makes  it  survive  the  occasion  that  called  it  forth. 
But  the  greatest  of  Burke's  speeches  —  if  we  look 
merely  at  the  richness  and  variety  of  mental  power 
and  the  force  and  depth  of  moral  passion  displayed  in 
it  —  is  his  speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts.     No 
speech  ever  delivered  before  any  assembly,  legislative, 
judicial,  or  popular,  can  rank  with  this  in  respect  to 
the  abundance  of  its  facts,  reasonings,  and  imagery, 
and  the  ferocity  of  its  moral  wrath.     It  resembles  the 
El  Dorado  that  Voltaire's  Candide  visited,  where  the 
boys  played  with  precious  stones  of  inestimable  value, 
as  our  boys  play  with  ordinary  marbles ;  for  to  the 
inhabitants  of  El  Dorado  diamonds  and  pearls  were 
as  common  as  pebbles  are  with  us. 

But  the  defect  of  this  speech,  which  must  still  be 
considered,  on  the  whole,  the  most  inspired  product  of 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          213 

Burke's  great  nature,  was  this,  —  that  it  did  not  strike 
its  hearers  or  readers  as  having  reality  for,  its  basis 
or  for  the  superstructure  raised  upon  it.  English- 
men could  not  believe  then,  and  most  of  them  probably 
do  not  believe  now,  that  it  had  any  solid  foundation 
in  incontrovertible  facts.  It  did  not  "  fit  in  "  to  their 
ordinary  modes  of  thought;  and  it  has  never  been 
ranked  with  Burke's  "  organized "  orations ;  it  has 
never  come  home  to  what  Bacon  called  the  "  business 
and  bosoms "  of  his  countrymen.  They  have  gener- 
ally dismissed  it  from  their  imaginations  as  "  a  phan- 
tasmagoria and  a  hideous  dream  "  created  by  Burke 
under  the  impulse  of  the  intense  hatred  he  felt  for  the 
administration  which  succeeded  the  overthrow  of  the 
government  which  was  founded  on  the  coalition  of 
Fox  and  North. 

Now,  in  simple  truth,  the  speech  is  the  most  mas- 
terly statement  of  facts  relating  to  the  oppression  of 
millions  of  the  people  of  India,  which  was  ever  forced 
on  the  attention  of  the  House  of  Commons,  —  a  legis- 
lative assembly  which,  it  may  be  incidentally  remarked, 
was  practically  responsible  for  the  just  government  of 
the  immense  Indian  empire  of  Great  Britain.  It  is 
curious  that  the  main  facts  on  which  the  argument  of 
Burke  rests  have  been  confirmed  by  James  Mill,  the 
coldest-blooded  historian  that  ever  narrated  the  enor- 
mous crimes  which  attended  the  rise  and  progress  of 
the  British  power  in  Hindostan,  and  a  man  who  also  had 
a  strong  intellectual  antipathy  to  the  mind  of  Burke. 
In  making  the  speech,  Burke  had  documentary  evi- 


214  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

dence  of  a  large  portion  of  the  transactions  he  de- 
nounced, %and  had  divined  the  rest.  Mill  supports 
him  both  as  regards  the  facts  of  which  Burke  had 
positive  knowledge,  and  the  facts  which  he  deduc- 
tively inferred  from  those  he  knew.  Having  thus  a 
strong  foundation  for  his  argument,  he  exerted  every 
faculty  of  his  mind  and  every  impulse  of  his  moral 
sentiment  and  moral  passion  to  overwhelm  the  lead- 
ing members  of  the  administration  of  Pitt,  by  attempt- 
ing to  make  them  accomplices  in  crimes  which  would 
disgrace  even  slave-traders  on  the  Guinea  coast.  The 
merely  intellectual  force  of  his  reasoning  is  crushing ; 
his  analysis  seems  to  be  sharpened  by  his  hatred ;  and 
there  is  no  device  of  contempt,  scorn,  derision,  and 
direct  personal  attack  which  he  does  not  unsparingly 
use.  In  the  midst  of  all  this  mental  tumult,  inesti- 
mable maxims  of  moral  and  political  wisdom  are  shot 
forth  in  short  sentences,  which  have  so  much  of  the 
sting  and  brilliancy  of  epigram  that  at  first  we  do 
not  appreciate  their  depth  of  thought ;  and  through 
all  there  burns  such  a  pitiless  fierceness  of  moral  rep- 
robation of  cruelty,  injustice,  and  wrong  that  all  the 
accredited  courtesies  of  debate  are  violated,  once,  at 
least,  in  every  five  minutes.  In  any  American  legis- 
lative assembly  he  would  have  been  called  to  order  at 
least  once  in  five  minutes.  The  images  which  the 
orator  brings  in  to  give  vividness  to  his  argument  are 
sometimes  coarse ;  but,  coarse  as  they  are,  they  ad- 
mirably reflect  the  moral  turpitude  of  the  men  against 
whom  he  inveighs.  Among  these  is  the  image  with 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          215 

which  he  covers  Dundas,  the  special  friend  of  Pitt, 
with  a  ridicule  which  promises  to  be  immortal.  Dun- 
das,  on  the  occasion  when  Fox  and  Burke  called  for 
papers  by  the  aid  of  which  they  proposed  to  demon- 
strate the  iniquity  of  the  scheme  by  which  the  ministry 
proposed  to  settle  the  debts  of  the  Nabob  of  Arcot, 
pretended  that  the  production  of  such  papers  would 
be  indelicate,  —  "that  this  inquiry  is  of  a  delicate 
nature,  and  that  the  State  will  suffer  detriment  by  the 
exposure  of  this  transaction."  As  Dundas  had  pre- 
viously brought  out  six  volumes  of  Reports,  generally 
confirming  Burke's  own  views  of  the  corruption  and 
oppression  which  marked  the  administration  of  affairs 
in  India,  he  laid  himself  open  to  Burke's  celebrated 
assault.  Dundas  and  delicacy,  he  said,  were  "  a  rare 
and  singular  coalition."  And  then  follows  an  image 
of  colossal  coarseness,  such  as  might  be  supposed 
capable  of  rousing  thunder-peals  of  laughter  from  a 
company  of  festive  giants,  —  an  image  which  Lord 
Brougham  declared  offended  Ms  sensitive  taste,  —  the 
sensitive  taste  of  one  of  the  most  formidable  legal  and 
legislative  bullies  that  ever  appeared  before  the  juries 
or  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  and  who  never  hesi- 
tated to  use  any  illustration,  however  vulgar,  which  he 
thought  would  be  effective  to  degrade  his  opponents. 

But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  indelicacy  of 
Burke's  image,  it  was  one  eminently  adapted  to  pene- 
trate through  the  thick  hide  of  the  minister  of  State 
at  whom  it  was  aimed  ;  and  it  shamed  him  as  far  as  a 
profligate  politician  like  Dundas  was  capable  of  feel- 


216  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ing  the  sensation  of  shame.  But  there  are  also 
flashes,  or  rather  flames,  of  impassioned  imagination 
in  the  same  speech,  which  rush  up  from  the  main 
body  of  its  statements  and  arguments,  and  remind  us 
of  nothing  so  much  as  of  those  jets  of  incandescent 
gas  which,  we  are  told  by  astronomers,  occasionally 
leap,  from  the  extreme  outer  covering  of  the  sun,  to 
the  height  of  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  sixty  thou- 
sand miles,  and  testify  to  the  terrible  forces  raging 
within  it.  After  reading  this  speech  for  the  fiftieth 
time,  the  critic  cannot  free  himself  from  the  rapture 
of  admiration  and  amazement  which  he  experienced 
in  his  first  fresh  acquaintance  with  it.  Yet  its  de- 
livery in  the  House  of  Commons  (February  28, 1785) 
produced  an  effect  so  slight  that  Pitt,  after  a  few 
minutes'  consultation  with  Grenville,  concluded  that 
it  was  not  worth  the  trouble  of  being  answered  ;  and 
the  House  of  Commons,  obedient  to  the  Prime  Min- 
ister's direction,  negatived,  by  a  large  majority,  the 
motion  in  advocating  which  Burke  poured  out  the 
wonderful  treasures  of  his  intellect  and  imagination. 
To  be  sure,  the  House  was  tired  to  death  with  the 
discussion,  was  probably  very  sleepy,  and  the  orator 
spoke  five  hours  after  the  members  had  already 
shouted,  "  Question !  Question !  " 

The  truth  is,  that  this  speech,  unmatched  though  it 
is  in  the  literature  of  eloquence,  had  not,  as  has  been 
previously  stated,  the  air  of  reality.  It  struck  the 
House  as  a  magnificent  Oriental  dream,  as  an  Arabian 
Nights'  Entertainment,  as  a  tale  told  by  an  inspired 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          217 

madman, "  full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing ;" 
and  the  evident  partisan  intention  of  the  orator  to 
blast  Pitt's  administration,  by  exhibiting  its  complicity 
in  one  of  the  most  enormous  frauds  recorded  in  his- 
tory, confirmed  the  dandies,  the  cockneys,  the  bankers, 
and  the  country  gentlemen,  who,  as  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  stood  by  Pitt  with  all  the  com- 
bined force  of  their  levity,  their  venality,  and  their 
stupidity,  in  the  propriety  of  voting  Burke  down. 
And  even  now,  when  the  substantial  truth  of  all  the 
facts  he  alleged  is  established  on  evidence  which  con- 
vinces historians,  the  admiring  reader  can  understand 
why  it  failed  to  convince  Burke's  contemporaries,  and 
why  it  still  appears  to  lack  the  characteristics  of  a 
speech  thoroughly  organized.  Indeed,  the  mind  of 
Burke,  when  it  was  delivered,  can  only  be  compared 
to  a  volcanic  mountain  in  eruption ;  —  not  merely  a 
volcano  like  that  of  Vesuvius,  visited  by  scientists 
and  amateurs  in  crowds,  when  it  deigns  to  pour  forth 
its  flames  and  lava  for  the  entertainment  of  the  mul- 
titude ;  but  a  lonely  volcano,  like  that  of  Etna,  rising 
far  above  Vesuvius  in  height,  far  removed  from  all 
the  vulgar  curiosity  of  a  body  of  tourists,  but  rending 
the  earth  on  which  it  stands  with  the  mighty  earth- 
quake throes  of  its  fiery  centre  and  heart.  The  moral 
passion  —  perhaps  it  would  be  more  just  to  say  the 
moral  fury  —  displayed  in  the  speech  is  elemental, 
and  can  be  compared  to  nothing  less  intense  than  the 
earth's  interior  fire  and  heat. 

Now,  in  Webster's  great  legislative  efforts  his  mind 


218  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

is  never  exhibited  in  a  state  of  eruption.  In  the 
most  excited  debates  in  which  he  bore  a  prominent 
part,  nothing  strikes  us  more  than  the  admirable 
self-possession,  than  the  majestic  inward  calm,  which 
presides  over  all  the  operations  of  his  mind  and  the 
impulses  of  his  sensibility ;  so  that  in  building  up 
the  fabric  of  his  speech  he  has  his  reason,  imagina- 
tion, and  passion  under  full  control,  —  using  each 
faculty  and  feeling  as  the  occasion  may  demand,  but 
never  allowing  himself  to  be  used  ly  it,  —  and  always 
therefore  conveying  the  impression  of  power  in  re- 
serve, while  he  may,  in  fact,  be  exercising  all  the 
power  he  has  to  the  utmost.  In  laboriously  erecting 
his  edifice  of  reasoning  he  also  studiously  regards 
the  intellects  and  the  passions  of  ordinary  men, 
strives  to  bring  his  mind  into  cordial  relations  with 
theirs,  employs  every  faculty  he  possesses  to  give 
reality,  to  give  even  visibility,  to  his  thoughts ;  and 
though  he  never  made  a  speech  which  rivals  that  of 
Burke  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts,  in  respect  to 
grasp  of  understanding,  astounding  wealth  of  imagi- 
nation, and  depth  of  moral  passion,  he  always  so  con- 
trived to  organize  his  materials  into  a  complete  whole, 
that  the  result  stood  out  clearly  to  the  sight  of  the 
mind  as  a  structure  resting  on  strong  foundations, 
and  reared  to  due  height  by  the  mingled  skill  of  the 
artisan  and  the  artist.  When  he  does  little  more 
than  weld  his  materials  together,  he  is  still  an  arti- 
ficer of  the  old  school  of  giant  workmen,  the  school 
that  dates  its  pedigree  from  Tubal  Cain. 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          219 

After  all  this  wearisome  detail  and  dilution  of  the 
idea  attempted  to  be  expressed,  it  may  be  that  I  have 
failed  to  convey  an  adequate  impression  of  what  con- 
stitutes Webster's  distinction  among  orators,  so  far 
as  orators  have  left  speeches  which  are  considered  an 
invaluable  addition  to  the  literature  of  the  language 
in  which  they  were  originally  delivered.  Everybody 
understands  why  any  one  of  the  great  sermons  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  or  the  sermon  of  Dr.  South  on  "  Man 
created  in  the  Image  of  God,"  or  the  sermon  of  Dr. 
Barrow  on  "  Heavenly  Rest,"  differs  from  the  mil- 
lions on  millions  of  doubtless  edifying  sermons  that 
have  been  preached  and  printed  during  the  last  two 
centuries  and  a  half ;  but  everybody  does  not  under- 
stand the  distinction  between  one  brilliant  oration 
and  another,  when  both  made  a  great  sensation  at  the 
time,  while  only  one  survived  in  literature.  Probably 
Charles  James  Fox  was  a  more  effective  speaker  in 
the  House  of  Commons  than  Edmund  Burke ;  prob- 
ably Henry  Clay  was  a  more  effective  speaker  in 
Congress  than  Daniel  Webster ;  but  when  the  occa- 
sions on  which  their  speeches  were  made  are  found 
gradually  to  fade  from  the  memory  of  men,  why  is  it 
that  the  speeches  of  Fox  and  Clay  have  no  recognized 
position  in  literature,  while  those  of  Burke  and  Web- 
ster are  ranked  with  literary  productions  of  the  first 
class  ?  The  reason  is  as  really  obvious  as  that  which 
explains  the  exceptional  value  of  some  of  the  efforts 
of  the  great  orators  of  the  pulpit.  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Dr.  South,  and  Dr.  Barrow,  different  as  they  were  in 


220  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

temper  and  disposition,  succeeded  in  "  organizing " 
some  masterpieces  in  their  special  department  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  activity ;  and  the  same  is  true  of 
Burke  and  Webster  in  the  departments  of  legislation 
and  political  science.  The  "  occasion  "  was  merely  an 
opportunity  for  the  consolidation  into  a  speech  of  the 
rare  powers  and  attainments,  the  large  personality 
and  affluent  thought,  which  were  the  spiritual  pos- 
sessions of  the  man  who  made  it,  —  a  speech  which 
represented  the  whole  intellectual  manhood  of  the 
speaker,  —  a  manhood  in  which  knowledge,  reason, 
imagination,  and  sensibility  were  all  consolidated 
under  the  directing  power  of  will. 

A  pertinent  example  of  the  difference  we  have  at- 
tempted to  indicate  may  be  easily  found  in  contrast- 
ing Fox's  closing  speech  on  the  East  India  Bill  with 
Burke's  on  the  same  subject.  For  immediate  effect 
on  the  House  of  Commons,  it  ranks  with  the  most 
masterly  of  Fox's  Parliamentary  efforts.  The  hits 
on  his  opponents  were  all  "  telling."  The  argumen- 
turn  ad  hominem,  embodied  in  short,  sharp  statements, 
or  startling  interrogatories,  was  never  employed  with 
more  brilliant  success.  The  reasoning  was  rapid, 
compact,  encumbered  by  no  long  enumeration  of 
facts,  and,  though  somewhat  unscrupulous  her.e  and 
there,  was  driven  home  upon  his  adversaries  with  a 
skill  that  equalled  its  audacity.  It  may  be  said  that 
there  is  not  a  sentence  in  the  whole  speech  which 
was  not  calculated  to  sting  a  sleepy  audience  into 
attention,  or  to  give  delight  to  a  fatigued  audience 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          221 

which  still  managed  to  keep  its  eyes  and  ininds  wide 
open.  Even  in  respect  to  the  principles  of  liberty 
and  justice,  which  were  the  animating  life  of  the  bill, 
Fox's  terse  sentences  contrast  strangely  with  the 
somewhat  more  lumbering  and  elaborate  paragraphs 
of  Burke.  "  What,"  he  exclaims,  putting  his  argu- 
ment in  his  favorite  interrogative  form,  —  "  what  is 
the  most  odious  species  of  tyranny  ?  Precisely  that 
which  this  bill  is  meant  to  annihilate,  —  that  a  hand- 
ful of  men,  free  themselves,  should  exercise  the  most 
base  and  abominable  despotism  over  millions  of  their 
fellow-creatures  ;  that  innocence  should  be  the  victim 
of  oppression ;  that  industry  should  toil  for  rapine ; 
that  the  harmless  laborer  should  sweat,  not  for  his 
own  benefit,  but  for  the  luxury  and  rapacity  of  tyran- 
nic depredation,  —  in  a  word,  that  thirty  millions  of 
men,  gifted  by  Providence  with  the  ordinary  endow- 
ments of  humanity,  should  groan  under  a  system  of 
despotism  unmatched  in  all  the  histories  of  the  world  ! 
What  is  the  end  of  all  government  ?  Certainly,  the 
happiness  of  the  governed.  Others  may  hold  differ- 
ent opinions  ;  but  this  is  mine,  and  I  proclaim  it. 
What,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  a  government  whose 
good  fortune  is  supposed  to  spring  from  the  calami- 
ties of  its  subjects,  whose  aggrandizement  grows  out 
of  the  miseries  of  mankind  ?  This  is  the  kind  of 
government  exercised  under  the  East  Indian  Com- 
pany upon  the  natives  of  Hindostan ;  and  the  sub- 
version of  that  infamous  government  is  the  main 
object  of  the  bill  in  question."  And  afterwards  he 


222  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

says,  with  admirable  point  and  pungency  of  state- 
ment :  "  Every  line  in  both  the  bills  which  I  have 
had  the  honor  to  introduce  presumes  the  possibility 
of  bad  administration ;  for  every  word  breathes  sus- 
picion. This  bill  supposes  that  men  are  but  men. 
It  confides  in  no  integrity  ;  it  trusts  no  character  ;  it 
inculcates  the  wisdom  of  a  jealousy  of  power,  and 
annexes  responsibility,  not  only  to  every  action,  but 
even  to  the  inaction  of  those  who  are  to  dispense  it. 
The  necessity  of  these  provisions  must  be  evident, 
when  it  is  known  that  the  different  misfortunes  of 
the  company  have  resulted  not  more  from  what  their 
servants  did,  than  from  what  the  masters  did  not" 

There  is  a  directness  in  such  sentences  as  these 
which  we  do  not  find  in  Burke's  speech  on  the  East 
India  Bill;  but  Burke's  remains  as  a  part  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  and  in  form  and  substance,  especially 
in  substance,  is  so  immensely  superior  to  that  of  Fox, 
that  in  quoting  sentences  from  the  latter  one  may 
almost  be  supposed  to  rescue  them  from  that  neglect 
which  attends  all  speeches  that  do  not  reach  beyond 
the  occasion  which  calls  them  forth.  In  Bacon's 
phrase,  the  speech  of  Fox  shows  ,"  small  matter,  and 
infinite  agitation  of  wit;"  in  Burke's,  we  discern 
large  matter  with  an  abundance  of  "  wit "  proper  to 
the  discussion  of  the  matter,  but  nothing  which  sug- 
gests the  idea  of  mere  "  agitation."  Fox,  in  his 
speeches,  subordinated  everything  to  the  immediate 
impression  he  might  make  on  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  deliberately  gave  it  as  his  opinion,  that  a  speech 


AS  A  MASTER  OE  ENGLISH  STYLE.          223 

that  read  well  must  be  a  bad  speech ;  and,  in  a 
literary  sense,  the  House  of  Commons,  which  he 
entered  before  he  was  twenty,  may  be  called  both 
the  cradle  and  the  grave  of  his  fame.  It  has  been 
said  that  he  was  a  debater  whose  speeches  should  be 
studied  by  every  man  who  wishes  "  to  learn  the 
science  of  logical  defence;"  that  he  alone,  among 
English  orators,  resembles  Demosthenes,  inasmuch 
as  his  reasoning  is  "penetrated  and  made  red-hot 
by  passion ; "  and  that  nothing  could  excel  the  effect 
of  his  delivery  when  "  he  was  in  the  full  paroxysm 
of  inspiration,  foaming,  screaming,  choked  by  the 
rushing  multitude  of  his  words."  But  not  one  of 
his  speeches,  not  even  that  on  the  East  India  Bill, 
or  on  the  Westminster  Scrutiny,  or  on  the  Russian 
Armament,  or  on  Parliamentary  Reform,  or  on  Mr. 
Pitt's  Rejection  of  Bonaparte's  Overtures  for  Peace, 
has  obtained  an  abiding  place  in  the  literature  of 
Great  Britain.  It  would  be  no  disparagement  to  an 
educated  man,  if  it  were  said  that  he  had  never  read 
these  speeches ;  but  it  would  be  a  serious  bar  to  his 
claim  to  be  considered  an  English  scholar  if  he  con- 
fessed to  be  ignorant  of  the  great  speeches  of  Burke, 
for  such  a  confession  would  be  like  admitting  that 
he  had  never  read  the  first  book  of  Hooker's  "  Ec- 
clesiastical Polity,"  Bacon's  "  Essays  and  Advance- 
ment of  Learning,"  Milton's  "  Areopagitica,"  Butler's 
"  Analogy,"  and  Adam  Smith's  "  Wealth  of  Nations." 
When  we  reflect  on  the  enormous  number  of  Ameri- 
can speeches  which,  when  they  were  first  delivered, 


224  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

were  confidently  predicted,  by  appreciating  friends, 
to  insure  to  the  orators  a  fame  which  would  be  im- 
mortal, one  wonders  a  little  at  the  quiet  persistence 
of  the  speeches  of  Webster  in  refusing  to  die  with 
the  abrupt  suddenness  of  other  orations  which  at 
the  time  of  their  delivery  seemed  to  have  an  equal 
chance  of  renown.  The  lifeless  remains  of  such  un- 
fortunate failures  are  now  entombed  in  that  dreariest 
of  all  mausoleums,  the  dingy  quarto  volumes,  hateful 
to  all  human  eyes,  which  are  lettered  on  the  back 
with  the  title  of  "  Congressional  Debates,"  —  a  collec- 
tion of  printed  matter  which  members  of  Congress 
are  wont  to  send  to  a  favored  few  among  their  con- 
stituents, and  which  are  immediately  consigned  to 
the  dust-barrel  or  sold  to  pedlers  in  waste  paper, 
according  as  the  rage  of  the  recipients  takes  a  scorn- 
ful or  an  economical  direction.  It  would  seem  that 
the  speeches  of  Webster  are  saved  from  this  fate,  by 
the  fact  that  in  them  the  mental  and  moral  life  of 
a  great  man,  and  of  a  great  master  of  the  English 
language,  are  organized  in  a  palpable  intellectual 
form.  The  reader  feels  that  they  have  some  of  the 
substantial  qualities  which  he  recognizes  in  looking 
at  the  gigantic  constructions  of  the  master  workmen 
among  the  crowd  of  the  world's  engineers  and  archi- 
tects, in  looking  at  the  organic  products  of  Nature 
herself,  and  in  surveying,  through  the  eye  of  his  im- 
agination, those  novel  reproductions  of  Nature  which 
great  poets  have  embodied  in  works  which  are  in- 
delibly stamped  with  the  character  of  deathlessness. 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          225 

But  Webster  is  even  more  obviously  a  poet  —  sub- 
ordinating "  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the 
mind "  —  in  his  magnificent  idealization,  or  idoliza- 
tion, of  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  By  the 
magic  of  his  imagination  and  sensibility  he  contrived 
to  impress  on  the  minds  of  a  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  free  States  a  vague,  grand  idea  that  the  Con- 
stitution was  a  sacred  instrument  of  government,  — 
a  holy  shrine  of  fundamental  law,  which  no  unhal- 
lowed hands  could  touch  without  profanation,  —  a 
digested  system  of  rights  and  duties,  resembling 
those  institutes  which  were  in  early  times  devised 
by  the  immortal  gods  for  the  guidance  of  infirm 
mortal  man ;  and  the  mysterious  creatures,  half 
divine  and  half  human,  who  framed  this  remarkable 
document,  were  always  reverently  referred  to  as  "  the 
Fathers/'  —  as  persons  who  excelled  all  succeeding 
generations  in  sagacity  and  wisdom;  as  inspired 
prophets,  who  were  specially  selected  by  Divine 
Providence  to  frame  the  political  scriptures  on  which 
our  political  faith  was  to  be  based,  and  by  which  our 
political  reason  was  to  be  limited.  The  splendor  of 
the  glamour  thus  cast  over  the  imaginations  and 
sentiments  of  the  people  was  all  the  more  effective 
because  it  was  an  effluence  from  the  mind  of  a  states- 
man who  of  all  other  statesmen  of  the  country  was 
deemed  the  most  practical,  and  the  least  deluded  by  any 
misguiding  lights  of  fancy  and  abstract  speculation. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Webster's  impres- 
sive idealization  of  the  Constitution  gave  a  certain 

15 


226  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

narrowness  to  American  thinking  on  constitutional 
government  and  the  science  of  politics  and  legisla- 
tion. Foreigners  of  the  most  liberal  views  could  not 
sometimes  restrain  an  expression  of  wonder,  when 
they  found  that  our  most  intelligent  men,  even  our 
jurists  and  publicists,  hardly  condescended  to  notice 
the  eminent  European  thinkers  on  the  philosophy 
of  government,  so  absorbed  were  they  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  perfection  of  their  own.  When 
the  great  Civil  War  broke  out,  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  American  citizens  marched  to  the  battle-field 
with  the  grand  passages  of  Webster  glowing  in  their 
hearts.  They  met  death  cheerfully  in  the  cause  of 
the  "  Constitution  and  Union,"  as  by  him  expounded 
and  idealized ;  and  if  they  were  so  unfortunate  as  not 
to  be  killed,  but  to  be  taken  captive,  they  still  rotted 
to  death  in  Southern  prisons,  sustained  by  sentences 
of  Webster's  speeches  which  they  had  declaimed  as 
boys  in  their  country  schools.  Of  all  the  triumphs 
of  Webster  as  a  leader  of  public  opinion,  the  most 
remarkable  was  his  infusing  into  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  the  free  States  the  belief  that  the  Constitu- 
tion as  it  existed  in  his  time  was  an  organic  fact, 
springing  from  the  intelligence,  hearts,  and  wills  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  not,  as  it  really 
was,  an  ingenious  mechanical  contrivance  of  wise 
men,  to  which  the  people  at  the  time  gave  their 
assent. 

The   constitutions  of  the   separate   States  of  the 
Union  were  doubtless  rooted  in  the  habits,  senti- 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          227 

ments,  and  ideas  of  their  inhabitants.  But  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  could  not  possess  this 
advantage,  however  felicitously  it  may  have  been 
framed  for  the  purpose  of  keeping,  for  a  considerable 
period,  peace  between  the  different  sections  of  the 
country.  So  long,  therefore,  as  the  institution  of 
negro  slavery  lasted,  it  could  not  be  called  a  Con- 
stitution of  States  organically  "  United ; "  for  it  lacked 
the  principle  of  growth^  which  characterizes  all  con- 
stitutions of  government  which  are  really  adapted 
to  the  progressive  needs  of  a  people,  if  the  people 
have  in  them  any  impulse  which  stimulates  them 
to  advance.  The  unwritten  constitution  of  Great 
Britain  has  this  advantage,  —  that  a  decree  of  Par- 
liament can  alter  the  whole  representative  system, 
annihilating  by  a  vote  of  the  two  houses  all  laws 
which  the  Parliament  had  enacted  in  former  years. 
In  Great  Britain,  therefore,  a  measure  which  any 
Imperial  Parliament  passes  becomes  at  once  the  su- 
preme law  of  the  land,  though  it  may  nullify  a  great 
number  of  laws  which  previous  Parliaments  had 
passed  under  different  conditions  of  the  sentiment 
of  the  nation.  Our  Constitution,  on  the  other  hand, 
provides  for  the  contingencies  of  growth  in  the  public 
sentiment  only  by  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
These  amendments  require  more  than  a  majority  of 
all  the  political  forces  represented  in  Congress ;  and 
Mr.  Calhoun,  foreseeing  that  a  collision  must  eventu- 
ally occur  between  the  two  sections,  carried  with  him, 
not  only  the  South,  but  a  considerable  minority  of 


228  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  North,  in  resisting  any  attempt  to  limit  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery.  On  this  point  the  passions  and 
principles  of  the  people  of  the  slave-holding  and  the 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  non-slave-holding  States 
came  into  violent  opposition ;  and  there  was  no  pos- 
sibility that  any  amendment  to  the  Constitution  could 
be  ratified,  which  would  represent  either  the  growth 
of  the  Southern  people  in  their  ever-increasing  belief 
that  negro  slavery  was  not  only  a  good  in  itself,  but 
a  good  which  ought  to  be  extended/  or  the  growth 
of  the  Northern  people  in  their  ever-increasing  hos- 
tility both  to  slavery  and  its  extension.  Thus  two 
principles,  each  organic  in  its  nature,  and  demand- 
ing indefinite  development,  came  into  deadly  conflict 
under  the  mechanical  forms  of  a  Constitution  which 
was  not  organic. 

A  considerable  number  of  "Webster's  speeches  are 
devoted  to  denunciations  of  violations  of  the  Con- 
stitution perpetrated  by  his  political  opponents. 
These  violations,  again,  would  seem  to  prove  that 
written  constitutions  follow  practically  the  same  law 
of  development  which  marks  the  progress  of  the  un- 
written. By  a  strained  system  of  Congressional 
interpretation,  the  Constitution  has  been  repeatedly 
compelled  to  yield  to  the  necessities  of  the  party 
dominant  for  the  time  in  the  government,  and  has, 
if  we  may  believe  Webster,  been  repeatedly  changed 
without  being  constitutionally  "  amended."  The 
causes  which  led  to  the  most  terrible  civil  war  re- 
corded in  history  were  silently  working  beneath  the 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          229 

forms  of  the  Constitution,  —  both  parties,  by  the  way, 
appealing  to  its  provisions,  —  while  Webster  was 
.idealizing  it  as  the  utmost  which  humanity  could 
come  to  in  the  way  of  civil  government.  In  1848, 
when  nearly  all  Europe  was  in  insurrection  against 
its  rulers,  he  proudly  said  that  our  Constitution 
promised  to  be  the  oldest,  as  well  as  the  best,  in 
civilized  States.  Meanwhile  the  institution  of  negro 
slavery  was  undermining  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
Union.  The  moral  division  between  the  South  and 
North  was  widening  into  a  division  between  the  reli- 
gion of  the  two  sections.  The  Southern  statesmen, 
economists,  jurists,  publicists,  and  ethical  writers  had 
adapted  their  opinions  to  the  demands  which  the 
defenders  of  the  institution  of  slavery  imposed  on  the 
action  of  the  human  intellect  and  conscience ;  but  it 
was  rather  startling  to  discover  that  the  Christian 
religion,  as  taught  in  the  Southern  States,  was  a 
religion  which  had  no  vital  connection  with  the 
Christianity  taught  in  the  Northern  States.  There 
is  nothing  more  astounding,  to  a  patient  explorer  of 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  final  explosion,  than  this 
opposition  of  religions.  The  mere  form  of  the  dog- 
mas common  to  the  religion  of  both  sections  might 
be  verbally  identical ;  but  a  volume  of  sermons  by  a 
Southern  doctor  of  divinity,  so  far  as  he  touched  on 
the  matter  of  slavery,  was  as  different  from  one  pub- 
lished by  his  Northern  brother,  in  the  essential  moral 
and  humane  elements  of  Christianity,  as  though  they 
were  divided  from  each  other  by  a  gulf  as  wide  as 


230  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

that  which  yawns  between  a  Druid  priest  and  a  Chris- 
tian clergyman. 

The  politicians  of  the  South  —  whether  they  were 
the  mouthpieces  of  the  ideas  and  passions  of  their  con- 
stituents, or  were,  as  Webster  probably  thought,  more 
or  less  responsible  for  their  foolishness  and  bitter- 
ness —  were  ever  eager  to  precipitate  a  conflict,  which 
Webster  was  as  eager  to  prevent,  or  at  least  to  post- 
pone. It  was  fortunate  for  the  North  that  the  inevi- 
table conflict  did  not  come  in  1850,  when  the  free 
States  were  unprepared  for  it.  Ten  years  of  discus- 
sion and  preparation  were  allowed ;  when  the  war 
broke  out,  it  found  the  North  in  a  position  to  meet 
and  eventually  to  overcome  the  enemies  of  the  Union ; 
and  the  Constitution,  not  as  it  was,  bat  as  it  is,  now 
represents  a  form  of  government  which  promises  to 
be  permanent ;  for  after  passing  through  its  baptism 
of  fire  and  blood,  the  Constitution  contains  nothing 
which  is  not  in  harmony  with  any  State  government 
founded  on  the  principle  of  equal  rights  which  it 
guarantees,  and  is  proof  against  all  attacks  but  those 
which  may  proceed  from  the  extremes  of  human  folly 
and  wickedness.  But  that  before  the  Civil  War  it 
was  preserved  so  long  under  conditions  which  con- 
stantly threatened  it  with  destruction,  is  due  in  a  con- 
siderable degree  to  the  circumstance  that  it  found  in 
Daniel  Webster  its  poet  as  well  as  its  "  expounder." 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  said  that  the  style  of 
Webster  is  pre-eminently  distinguished  by  manliness. 
Nothing  little,  weak,  whining,  or  sentimental  can  be 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH   STYLE.  231 

detected  in  any  page  of  the  six  volumes  of  his  Works. 
A  certain  strength  and  grandeur  of  personality  is 
prominent  in  all  his  speeches.  When  he  says  "  I " 
or  "  my,"  he  never  appears  to  indulge  in  the  bravado 
of  self-assertion,  because  the  words  are  felt  to  express 
a  positive,  stalwart,  almost  colossal  manhood,  which 
had  already  been  implied  in  the  close-knit  sentences 
in  which  he  embodied  his  statements  and  arguments. 
He  is  an  eminent  instance  of  the  power  which  charac- 
ter communicates  to  style.  Though  evidently  proud, 
self-respecting,  and  high-spirited,  he  is  ever  above 
mere  vanity  and  egotism.  Whenever  he  gives  em- 
phasis to  the  personal  pronoun,  the  reader  feels  that 
he  had  as  much  earned  the  right  to  make  his  opinion 
an  authority,  as  he  had  earned  the  right  to  use  the 
words  he  employs  to  express  his  ideas  and  senti- 
ments. Thus,  in  the  celebrated  Smith  Will  trial,  his 
antagonist,  Mr.  Choate,  quoted  a  decision  of  Lord 
Chancellor  Camden.  In  his  reply  Webster  argued 
against  its  validity  as  though  it  were  merely  a  propo- 
sition laid  down  by  Mr.  Choate.  "  But  it  is  not 
mine,  it  is  Lord  Camden's,"  was  the  instant  retort. 
Webster  paused  for  half  a  minute,  and  then,  with  his 
eye  fixed  on  the  presiding  judge,  he  replied  :  "  Lord 
Camden  was  a  great  judge ;  he  is  respected  by  every 
American,  for  he  was  on  our  side  in  the  Revolution  ; 
but,  may  it  please  your  honor,  I  differ  from  my  Lord 
Camden."  There  was  hardly  a  lawyer  in  the  United 
States  who  could  have  made  such  a  statement  with- 
out exposing  himself  to  ridicule  ;  but  it  did  not  seem 


232  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

at  all  ridiculous  when  the  "  I "  stood  for  Daniel 
Webster.  In  his  early  career  as  a  lawyer  his  mode 
of  reasoning  was  such  as  to  make  him  practically  a 
thirteenth  juror  in  the  panel ;  when  his  fame  was 
fully  established,  he  contrived  in  some  mysterious 
way  to  seat  himself  by  the  side  of  the  judges  on  the 
bench,  and  appear  to  be  consulting  with  them  as  a 
jurist,  rather  than  addressing  them  as  an  advocate. 
The  personality  of  the  man  was  always  suppressed 
until  there  seemed  to  be  need  of  asserting  it;  and 
then  it  was  proudly  pushed  into  prominence,  though 
rarely  passing  beyond  the  limits  which  his  acknowl- 
edged eminence  as  a  statesman  and  lawyer  did  not 
justify.  Among  those  speeches^  in  which  his  indi- 
viduality becomes  somewhat  aggressive,  and  breaks 
loose  from  the  restraints  ordinarily  self-imposed  on 
it,  may  be  mentioned  his  speech  on  his  reception  at 
Boston  (1842),  his  Marshfield  Speech  (1848),  and 
his  speech  at  his  reception  at  Buffalo  (1851).  What- 
ever may  be  thought  of  the  course  of  argument  pur- 
sued in  these,  they  are  at  least  thoroughly  penetrated 
with  a  manly  spirit,  —  a  manliness  somewhat  haughty 
and  defiant,  but  still  consciously  strong  in  its  power 
to  return  blow  for  blow,  from  whatever  quarter  the 
assault  may  come. 

But  the  real  intellectual  and  moral  manliness  of 
Webster  underlies  all  his  great  orations  and  speeches, 
even  those  where  the  animating  life  which  gives 
them  the  power  to  persuade,  convince,  and  uplift  the 
reader's  mind,  seems  to  be  altogether  impersonal ; 


AS  A  MASTER  OF  ENGLISH  STYLE.          233 

and  this  plain  force  of  manhood,  this  sturdy  grapple 
with  every  question  that  comes  before  his  understand- 
ing for  settlement,  lead  him  contemptuously  to  reject 
all  the  meretricious  aids  and  ornaments  of  mere  rhet- 
oric, and  are  prominent  among  the  many  exceptional 
qualities  of  his  large  nature,  which  have  given  him  a 
high  position  among  the  prose-writers  of  his  country 
as  a  consummate  master  of  English  style. 


EMERSON  AND   CARLYLE.1 

BACON  says  of  private  letters,  that  "  such  as  are 
written  from  wise  men,  are,  of  all  the  words  of  men, 
in  my  judgment,  the  best;  for  they  are  more  natural 
than  orations,  public  speeches,  and  more  advised  than 
conferences  or  present  speeches." 

This  remark,  frequently  quoted  by  Emerson,  is 
evidently  true  of  the  letters  which  passed  between  him 
and  Carlyle  from  1834  to  1872.  They  are  natural,  in 
the  sense  of  expressing  the  inmost  natures  of  the  cor- 
respondents, and  are  thus  thoroughly  sincere.  But 
the  sincerity  of  Emerson  was  that  of  a  sweet,  serene, 
hopeful,  tolerant,  wholesome,  and  aspiring  nature ; 
the  sincerity  of  Carlyle  was  that  of  a  nature  harsh, 
unquiet,  despondent,  intolerant,  despairing,  and  un- 
healthy. Both  of  the  correspondents  were  eminently 
strong  men ;  it  was  impossible  that  either  could  be 
swayed  from  his  predetermined  course  by  fear  or*  flat- 
tery, by  social  ostracism  or  social  favor,  by  the  appre- 
hension of  poverty  or  the  seduction  of  wealth;  but 
the  strength  of  Emerson  was  ever  calm,  while  that  of 

1  The  Correspondence  of  Thomas  Carlyle  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son.  1834-1872.  Boston:  James  B.  Osgood  &  Co.  2  vols.  12mo. 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.        235 

Carlyle  was  oftentimes  spasmodic.  Emerson,  relying 
on  his  intuitions,  was  sublimely  indifferent  to  the  re- 
ceived opinions  and  accredited  reputations  which  Car- 
lyle savagely  assailed. 

The  difference  between  the  two  was  not  merely  a  dif- 
ference of  character  and  experience,  but  a  difference  in 
respect  to  physical  health.  Brought  up  to  receive  as 
absolute  truth  the  austerest  doctrines  of  Scotch  Pres- 
byterianism,  professed  by  a  father  whom  he  held  to 
be  the  best  of  men,  Carlyle  was  "  destined "  for  the 
ministry.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  had  his 
reason  accepted  the  dogmas  he  was  to  preach,  he 
would  have  been  a  preacher  greater  than  Chalmers. 
The  trouble  was  that  his  culture  made  him  doubt  the 
truth  of  the  dogmas  he  was  expected  to  expound.  In 
a  great  many  instances  the  young  students  of  theology 
glide  over  what  offends  them  at  first  sight  in  the  rigid 
articles  of  their  creed,  and  become  clergymen  by  rela- 
tive superficiality  of  mind  and  character,  without  im- 
agination enough  to  realize  the  terrible  consequences 
of  the  articles  to  which  they  subscribe  in  the  laudable 
desire  to  "  make  a  living."  They  wish  to  be  married ; 
they  wish  to  do  good  in  practising  their  profession ; 
and,  happy  in  a  wife  and  family  devoted  to  them,  they 
preach  in  the  morning  the  doctrine  of  divine  wrath  to 
the  children  of  men,  and  then  in  the  evening  mingle 
cheerfully  with  their  flock,  and  are  the  most  genial, 
entertaining,  instructive,  helpful,  and  humane  of  the 
company  they  call  together.  Their  humanity  triumphs 
over  their  theology ;  they  insensibly  modify  the  harsh 


236        EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

elements  of  their  theoretical  creed  when  they  are  in 
actual  contact  with  the  practical  needs  of  their  con- 
gregations ;  and  no  fair-minded  person  who  has  a 
large  acquaintance  with  our  towns  and  villages,  could 
think  of  the  abolition  of  our  Christian  churches  and 
pastors  without  a  shudder  of  apprehension  for  the 
prospects  of  our  civilization.  Whatever  may  be  the 
special  creeds  which  the  clergymen  profess,  they  reso- 
lutely stand  for  absolute  principles  of  ethics  in  practi- 
cal life,  and  for  larger  ideas  in  philosophy  than  obtain 
in  their  respective  parishes. 

But  Carlyle,  after  endeavoring  to  realize  to  his 
reason,  heart,  and  imagination  the  dogmas  of  the 
religious  creed  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  could  not  accept  it, 
and  became  a  man  of  letters  in  despair  of  submitting 
his  intelligence  to  the  stern  doctrines  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland.  The  struggle  in  a  mind  so  vigorous  and 
a  character  so  strong  as  his  between  what  he  wished 
to  believe  and  what  he  found  he  could  not  believe, 
was  accompanied  by  agonies  of  spiritual  experience 
similar  to  that  through  which  Luther  and  Bunyan 
passed :  but  Carlyle  came  out  of  his  spiritual  struggle 
an  incurable  dyspeptic,  while  in  the  case  of  Luther 
and  Bunyan  we  are  not  informed  that  the  disturb- 
ances in  their  souls  left  any  permanent  derangements 
in  their  digestion.  Carlyle  became  dyspeptic  not  only 
in  his  stomach,  but  in  his  brain  and  heart ;  and  his 
whole  view  of  life  here  and  hereafter,  of  history  and 
of  contemporary  annals,  was  discolored  and  distorted 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.        237 

from  the  fact  that  his  indigestion  extended  to  the  very 
centre  of  his  spiritual  being.  Existence  was  to  him  a 
questionable  blessing,  for  his  will,  his  genius,  his  con- 
science, and  his  poverty  exacted  from  him  the  duty  of 
constant  labor ;  and  labor  brought  him,  according  to 
his  own  account,  none  of  the  sweet  compensations  of 
labor.  He  had  in  him  a  certain  barbaric  force, —  a 
^force  compared  with  which  all  civilized  energy  appears 
comparatively  weak ;  but  he  was  an  invalid  barbarian, 
on  whom  the  culture  of  Europe  had  been  lavished,  and 
the  sick  giant  wailed  and  mourned  and  growled  and 
sometimes  almost  blasphemed  during  the  whole  period 
in  which  he  resolutely  toiled.  He  preached  the  gospel 
of  work,  and  acted  up  to  its  severest  requirements ; 
but  the  gospel  gave  no  joy  to  the  workman.  In  his 
utmost  stress  of  poverty  he  wrote  to  Emerson  :  "  Me 
Mammon  will  pay  or  not,  as  he  finds  convenient ;  buy 
me  he  will  not."  One  is  reminded  of  Dr.  South's 
statement  that  "  it  is  hard  to  maintain  truth,  but  still 
harder  to  be  maintained  by  it." 

Emerson,  on  the  contrary,  had  no  experiences  in  his 
early  life  at  all  resembling  those  of  Carlyle.  He  was 
born  in  a  family  where  the  fear  of  God  was  absorbed 
in  the  love  of  God.  His  soul  was  infused  with  cheer 
from  his  infancy.  He  entered  and  passed  through 
college  without  a  blemish  on  his  name.  He  became 
by  "  natural  selection  "  a  Unitarian  minister,  and  did 
his  appointed  work  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his 
parish.  No  clergyman  was  ever  more  heartily  loved 
than  he  by  those  who  listened  to  his  discourses  and 


238  EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

were  favored  with  his  Christian  companionship.  He 
brought  cheer  and  hope  into  every  household  where 
he  appeared.  There  are  many  unpublished  memorials 
celebrating  the  effect  which  the  sweet  and  unaffected 
sanctity  of  his  character  produced  in  towns  remote 
from  Boston,  when  he  "  exchanged  "  services  with  his 
brother  clergymen.  One  letter,  written  by  the  most 
cultivated  and  self-sacrificing  woman  then  living  in 
Massachusetts,  testified  that  the  Unitarian  Associa- 
tion had  sent,  for  one  Sunday,  to  the  Northampton 
Unitarians  an  angel  when  the  latter  only  asked  for  a 
preacher.  But  Emerson  found  in  the  Unitarian  body 
some  rule  which  he  considered  to  limit  his  entire  in- 
dependence, and  he  quietly  abandoned  his  connection 
with  the  denomination  and  retired  to  his  country 
home  to  think  and  to  study  freely,  without  any  Associ- 
ation qualified  to  call  him  to  account  for  heresy  even 
with  respect  to  the  doctrines  of  Unitarianism.  All 
this  was  done  without  any  shock  either  to  his  soul  or 
to  his  digestion.  He  never  lost  his  physical  health, 
and  remained  to  the  last  perfectly  serene  in  all  spirit- 
ual as  well  as  in  all  practical  matters.  No  man  loved 
and  reverenced  God  more  than  he,  or  feared  him  less. 
He  is  an  extraordinary  instance  of  a  man  of  religious 
genius,  passing  through  religious  changes,  without 
being  submitted  to  any  stress  and  storm  of  religious 
passion. 

This  was  the  Emerson  who  at  the  age  of  thirty 
visited  for  one  day  Carlyle  at  his  lonely  residence  of 
Craigenputtock.  He  stayed  but  for  a  day ;  but  the  im- 


EMERSON  AND  CAKLYLE.  239 

pression  he  made  both  on  Carlyle  and  his  wife  was 
permanent,  and  led  to  a  life-long  friendship.  Years 
afterward,  Mrs.  Carlyle  wrote  that  she  could  never 
forget  the  visitor  who  had  descended  "  out  of  the 
clouds,  as  it  were,"  into  their  desert,  "  and  made  one 
day  there  look  like  enchantment  for  us,  and  left 
me  weeping  that  it  was  only  one  day."  Carlyle  him- 
self reckoned  only  three  "  happinesses  "  that  had  oc- 
curred to  him  in  the  year  1833,  —  the  first  two  of 
which  were  trivial,  but  the  third  of  memorable  im- 
portance ;  for  the  third  happiness  was  the  visit  of 
Emerson,  who  appeared  both  to  Jane  and  himself 
as  "  one  of  the  most  lovable  creatures  they  had  ever 
looked  on." 

On  Emerson's  return  to  the  United  States,  the  cor- 
respondence between  the  two  began  by  a  letter  from 
Emerson,  dated  May,  1834,  in  which  he  welcomes 
"  Sartor  Resartus,"  glories  in  the  brave  stand  that 
the  author  has  made  for  spiritualism,  but  is  repelled 
by  the  oddity  of  the  vehicle  chosen  to  convey  "  this 
treasure,"  and  looks  forward  to  the  time  "  when  the 
word  will  be  as  simple,  and  so  as  resistless,  as  the 
thought."  Indeed,  Emerson  was  for  many  years  dis- 
satisfied with  the  strange  liberties  which  his  friend 
took  with  the  English  language.  He  wrote,  in  1835, 
that  he  cherished  a  "  salutary  horror  of  the  German 
style  of  '  Sartor  Resartus.'  "  It  was  only  long  after 
this  letter  that,  in  recommending  Carlyle's  "  Crom- 
well "  to  a  friend,  he  was  met  by  the  ordinary  objec- 
tion to  the  writer's  style.  "  Read  him  for  his  style," 


240  EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

was  Emerson's  emphatic  rejoinder ;  and  indeed,  if  the 
excellence  of  a  style  be  judged  according  to  the  feli- 
city with  which  it  expresses  and  embodies  a  peculiar 
individual  nature,  the  style  of  Carlyle  is  unobjection- 
able. It  is  only  when  his  imitators  write  in  Carlylese, 
that  we  perceive  how  pernicious  that  dialect  of  the 
English  tongue  is  as  a  model,  and  how  ridiculous  it 
becomes  in  other  hands  than  his  own.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  select  a  sentence  of  Emerson  in  which  its 
peculiarities  appear.  Yet,  while  Emerson  protests 
against  the  "  grotesque  Teutonic  apocalyptic  strain " 
of  the  book,  he  admits  that  it  may  be  inevitable  that 
the  strange  jargon,  as  it  seems  to  him,  is  Carlyle's 
most  natural  method  of  utterance  ;  "  for,"  he  declares, 
"  are  not  all  our  little  circlets  of  will  as  so  many  little 
eddies  rounded  in  by  the  great  Circle  of  Necessity  ? 
and  could  the  Truth-speaker,  perhaps  now  the  best 
thinker  of  the  Saxon  race,  have  written  otherwise  ? 
And  must  we  not  say  that  Drunkenness  is  a  virtue 
rather  than  that  Cato  has  erred  ?  "  Is  it  possible  to 
conceive  that  recognition  and  reproof  could  be  more 
genially  and  gracefully  combined  ? 

This  letter  led  to  a  correspondence  between  the  two 
friends  which  was  continued,  with  intervals  of  silence, 
for  forty  years.  In  richness  and  fulness  of  matter, 
there  is  nothing  superior,  nothing  —  one  is  prompted 
to  say  —  equal  to  it  in  literary  annals.  The  sentences 
which  a  reviewer  would  be  inclined  to  quote  are  so 
numerous  that,  if  he  indulged  his  inclination,  he 
would  be  in  danger  of  infringing  the  law  of  copyright. 


EMERSON  AND  CAKLYLE.  241 

There  will,  of  course,  be  a  wide  immediate  demand  for 
the  book  from  that  large  portion  of  cultivated  readers 
who  are  stimulated  by  mere  intellectual  curiosity ; 
but  the  volumes  so  swarm  with  striking  thoughts, 
and,  in  old  Ben  Jonson's  vernacular,  are  so  "  rammed 
with  life,"  that  we  can  confidently  predict  they  will  be 
read  a  century  hence  with  delight.  They  are  specially 
interesting  as  recording  the  intimate  communion  of 
two  of  the  most  original  minds,  and  two  of  the  most 
contrasted  individualities,  which  our  century  has  pro- 
duced. It  would  seem,  at  the  first  glance,  that  it  was 
impossible  for  two  such  men  to  be  bound  together 
in  a  vital  friendship,  —  a  friendship  which  the  lapse 
of  time  and  frequent  disagreement  in  opinion  and 
action  only  rendered  more  close  and  indissoluble. 

The  difference,  indeed,  between  the  two  men  im- 
presses the  reader  on  almost  every  page.  Emerson 
was  the  champion  of  the  Ideal ;  Carlyle  asserted  the 
absolute  dominion  of  Fact.  Emerson  declared  that 
Truth  is  mighty,  and  will  prevail;  Carlyle  retorted 
that  Truth  is  mighty,  and  has  prevailed.  Emerson 
looked  serenely  at  the  ugly  aspect  of  contemporary 
life,  because,  as  an  optimist,  he  was  a  herald  of  the 
Future ;  Carlyle,  as  a  pessimist,  denounced  the  Pres- 
ent, and  threw  all  the  energy  of  his  vivid  dramatic 
genius  into  vitalizing  the  Past.  Emerson  was  a 
prophet ;  Carlyle,  a  resurrectionist.  Emerson  gloried 
in  what  was  to  be ;  Carlyle  exulted  in  what  had 
been.  Emerson  declared,  even  when  current  events 

appeared    ugliest   to    the    philanthropist,  that   "the 

16 


242  EMERSON  AND  CAKLYLE. 

highest  thought  and  the  deepest  love  is  born  with 
Victory  on  his  head,"  and  must  triumph  in  the  end ; 
Carlyle,  gloomily  surveying  the  present,  insisted  that 
high  thought  and  deep  love  must  be  sought  and  found 
in  generations  long  past,  which  Dr.  Dryasdust  had  so 
covered  up  with  his  mountains  of  mud,  that  it  was 
only  by  immense  toil  he  (Carlyle)  had  been  able  to 
reproduce  them  as  they  actually  existed.  Look  up, 
says  Emerson,  cheerily ;  "  hitch  your  wagon  to  a 
star ; "  Look  down,  growls  Carlyle,  "  and  see  that 
your  wagon  is  an  honest  one,  safe  and  strong  in 
passing  over  miry  roads,  before  you  have  the  impu- 
dence to  look  up  to  the  smallest  star  in  the  rebuking 
heavens." 

The  practical  value  of  Emerson's  friendship  was 
proved  by  his  strenuous  efforts  to  disseminate  Car- 
lyle's  works  in  the  United  States,  and  by  pledging  his 
own  credit  to  pay  the  expenses  of  their  republication. 
In  this  way  all  the  profits  of  the  volumes,  less  the 
publisher's  commission  for  selling  them,  were  sent  to 
Carlyle.  That  magnificent  prose  epic,  "  The  French 
Revolution,"  fell  almost  dead  on  the  English  public ; 
while  in  the  United  States  it  was  so  warmly  wel- 
comed, that  the  author  obtained  the  remuneration  for 
writing  it  principally  from  his  admirers  in  this  coun- 
try, inspired  by  Emerson's  enthusiasm  for  the  lone, 
unappreciated  creator  of  an  immortal  work.  But 
there  is  something  comical  in  the  business  relations 
between  the  two  friends.  Neither  understands  book- 
keeping, or  has  penetrated  into  the  mysteries  of  an 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  243 

account  current.  Emerson  is  always  doubtful  as  to 
the  question  whether  he  has  got  his  money's  worth 
from  the  publishers,  but  still  sends  scores  of  pounds 
sterling  to  the  famishing  author;  Carlyle  gladly 
pockets  the  coin,  but  is  more  helpless  than  Emerson 
himself  in  understanding  whether  he  has  been  cheated 
or  not.  To  Carlyle,  all  publishers  are  "  hideous ; " 
but  he  thinks  that  Eraser  (of  "  the  sand  magazine  "  ) 
is  less  hideous  than  the  others,  because  he  has  become 
more  accustomed  to  him.  At  last,  Emerson,  by  call- 
ing into  the  conference  one  of  the  ablest  of  Boston 
merchants,  together  with  the  American  representative 
of  Baring  Brothers,  and  the  cashier  of  a  Boston  bank, 
finds  that  the  publishers  are  about  right.  But  it  is 
ludicrous  to  think  of  such  great  experts  in  accounts 
brought  in  to  decide  upon  a  matter  of  a  few  pounds 
and  shillings. 

Meanwhile,  Carlyle  had  "become  a  name."  A 
New  York  bookselling  and  publishing  firm,  dissatis- 
fied with  the  terms  on  which  they  could  purchase 
Carlyle's  books,  and  finding  that  it  would  pay  to  re- 
print them,  began  or  threatened  to  issue  them  in 
cheaper  editions.  This  they  had  a  perfect  legal  right 
to  do,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  "  courtesy  "  title, 
which  was  afterward,  by  the  leading  publishing  firms, 
accorded  to  the  first  American  reprinter  of  a  foreign 
author's  works.  If  any  English  writer  had  a  right  to 
complain  of  the  absence  of  international  copyright,  it 
was  Dickens ;  for  his  popularity  in  this  country  was 
so  immense  that  if  an  American  friend  had  under- 


244  EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

taken  to  do  for  him  what  Emerson  did  for  Carlyle, 
and  his  claim  had  been  admitted  by  the  booksellers, 
the  gains  of  Dickens  would  have  been  scores  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  from  the  United  States  alone.  Emer- 
son, however,  seems  to  have  considered  Carlyle  an 
exception.  No  decent  publisher,  though  he  made  but 
a  few  hundred  dollars  by  the  transaction,  should  dare 
to  touch  his  special  rights  by  unauthorized  reprints. 
The  result  was  a  number  of  indignant  letters  between 
the  friends,  in  which  all  the  resources  of  ingenious 
invective  were  lavished  on  the  unhappy  "pirate." 
When  " Past  and  Present"  was  on  the  eve  of  publica- 
tion, Emerson  suggested  an  arrangement  with  his 
irascible  friend,  to  have  the  volume  issued  simulta- 
neously in  England  and  in  this  country.  Carlyle 
replies :  "  The  practical  business  is :  How  to  cut  out 
that  New  York  scoundrel,  who  fancies  that,  because 
there  is  no  gallows,  it  is  permitted  to  steal  ?  I  have 
a  distinct  desire  to  do  that,  altogether  apart  from  the 
money  to  be  gained  thereby.  A  friend's  goodness 
ought  not  to  be  frustrated  by  a  scoundrel  destitute  of 
gallows."  Then  follows  a  letter  in  which  he  prophe- 
sies that  "  the  gibbetless  thief  in  New  York  will  beat 
us  after  all ; "  and  Emerson  despairingly  answers, 
"  You  are  no  longer  secure  of  any  respect  to  your 
property  in  our  freebooting  America."  Now  all  this 
"  Much  Ado  About  Little "  came  from  the  simple 
fact  that  one  prominent  bookseller  quarrelled  with 
another  on  a  question  of  the  proper  discount  to  be 
made  from  the  retail  price  of  one  or  two  books  of 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  245 

necessarily  limited  circulation.  Emerson  made  the 
mistake  of  insisting  that  the  retail  dealer  in  Carlyle's 
works  should  have  the  most  beggarly  commission  on 
the  volumes  he  displayed  on  his  counters.  He  thus 
checked  the  sale  of  the  writings  he  most  desired 
to  circulate.  Who  would  venture  to  order  twenty 
copies  of  a  book,  without  being  pretty  sure  that  he 
would  not  lose  by  the  bargain  in  case  he  sold  only 
twelve  ? 

It  is  well  known  that  Emerson's  appreciation  of  the 
fine  genius  and  beautiful  character  of  A.  B.  Alcott 
was  as  true  as  it  was  intense.  He  considered  him 
the  most  inspired  converser  in  the  country ;  but  he 
also  affirmed  that  what  he  wrote  and  published  gave 
but  the  slightest  indication  of  his  powers,  —  that 
with  him  the  tongue  was  a  more  potent  instrument 
of  expression  than  the  pen.  Indeed,  Mr.  Alcott  was 
a  born  idealist,  unflinchingly  applying  the  principles 
of  his  philosophy  to  the  ordinary  practical  concerns 
of  life.  There  is  a  story  current  of  a  certain  sturdy 
politician,  who  remained  faithful  to  his  party  and  sect 
until  Jiis  death  in  extreme  old  age.  It  was  alleged 
that  in  a  minute  after  his  birth  he  exclaimed,  "  Now 
I  want  all  you  people  fooling  round  here  to  under- 
stand that  I  am  born  a  Jeffirsonian  Dimmicrat  in 
politics,  and  a  Univarsalist  in  religion;  and  don't 
you  forgit  it."  The  legend  goes  on  to  say  that 
he  would  not  take  a  sip  of  mother's  milk  until  the 
rigid  conditions  on  which  he  condescended  to  ac- 
cept existence  were  complied  with.  One  can  imagine 


246  EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

that  the  infant  Alcott  might  have  announced  as  per- 
emptorily that  he  was  to  be  brought  up  as  a  Pytha- 
gorean in  diet  and  a  Platonist  in  philosophy.  At 
any  rate,  he  was  the  sweetest,  the  most  serene,  the 
most  humane  of  human  beings;  and  even  when  he 
carried  his  ideas  to  extremes  in  conduct,  all  who 
knew  and  loved  him  had  the  widest  toleration  for 
his  eccentricities. 

When  Mr.  Alcott  went  to  Europe,  in  1842,  Emerson 
commended  him  to  Carlyle  in  a  characteristic  fash- 
ion :  "  Let  the  stranger,  when  he  arrives  at  your  gate, 
make  a  new  and  primary  impression.  Be  sure  to  for- 
get what  you  have  heard  of  him;  and  if  you  have 
ever  read  anything  to  which  his  name  is  attached,  be 
sure  to  forget  that.  You  may  love  him,  or  hate  him, 
or  apathetically  pass  by  him,  as  your  genius  shall 
dictate ;  only  I  entreat  this,  that  you  do  not  let  him 
go  quite  out  of  your  reach  until  you  are  sure  that  you 
have  seen  him,  and  know  for  certain  the  nature  of 
the  man." 

And,  in  his  next  letter,  he  adds :  "  My  friend  Alcott 
must  have  visited  you  before  this,  and  you  have  seen 
whether  any  relation  could  subsist  between  men  so 
differently  excellent."  Indeed,  that  was  the  exact 
relation  between  Carlyle  and  Emerson. 

Emerson  must  have  feared  the  impression  which 
the  optimistic  Alcott  would  make  on  the  somewhat 
cynical  pessimist,  the  literary  Diogenes  of  the  Des- 
potism of  Letters,  as  contrasted  with  the  old  time 
"  Republic  "  of  the  same  name.  Carlyle  tried  "  to  be 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  247 

good," — the  phrase  which  his  wife  used  when  his 
irritable  temper  was  softened  by  friendship,  or  by 
a  dinner  which  oppressed  his  stomach  less  than 
usual,  —  and  he  wrote  back  to  Emerson  that  his 
friend  was  found  to  be  "  a  genial,  innocent,  simple- 
hearted  man,  of  much  natural  intelligence  and  good- 
ness, with  an  air  of  rusticity,  veracity,  and  dignity 
withal,  which  in  many  ways  appeals  to  me.  The  good 
Alcott,  —  with  his  long,  lean  face  and  figure,  with  his 
gray,  worn  temples  and  mild,  radiant  eyes,  all  bent 
on  saving  the  world  by  a  return  to  acorns  and  the 
Golden  Age,  —  he  comes  before  one  like  a  venerable 
Don  Quixote,  whom  nobody  can  even  laugh  at  without 
loving."  Emerson  replied :  "  As  you  do  not  seem  to 
have  seen  in  him  his  pure  and  noble  intellect,  I  fear 
that  it  lies  under  some  new  and  denser  clouds." 
Alcott  was  evidently  disappointed  with  his  reception. 
It  was  rumored,  at  the  time,  that  he  wrote  to  Emer- 
son in  these  words :  "  I  accuse  T.  Carlyle  of  inhospital- 
ity  to  my  thought."  At  any  rate,  he  must  have  felt, 
to  employ  one  of  his  own  phrases,  that  Carlyle  "  was 
not  iws-pirate,  but  des-perate."  He  brought  back  to 
New  England  a  follower  or  two,  whom  Carlyle  styled 
Alcott's  "English  Tail;"  and  he  implored  Emer- 
son to  avoid  it.  "  Bottomless  imbeciles,"  he  wrote, 
"  ought  not  to  be  seen  in  company  with  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  who  has  already  men  listening  to  him  on 
this  side  of  the  water.  The  '  Tail '  has  an  individual 
or  two  of  that  genus,  and  the  rest  is  mainly  unde- 
cided. For  example,  I  know  old myself ;  and 


248  EMERSON  AND  CARJLYLE. 

can  testify,  if  you  will  believe  me,  that  few  greater 
blockheads  (if  'blockhead  may  mean  exasperated 
imbecile,'  and  the  ninth  part  of  a  thinker)  broke  the 
world's  bread  in  his  day.  Have  a  care  of  such ! "  It 
must  be  admitted  that  the  "Tail"  of  the  returning 
philosopher  did  him  no  honor,  and  led  him  into  some 
absurdities ;  but  such  mistakes  were  merely  chance 
incidents  in  a  life  which  has  been  devoted  to  all  noble 
and  honorable  ends.  Emerson's  shrewdness  and  good 
sense  saved  him  from  any  participation  in  the  follies 
of  the  "  Tail." 

Thomas  Carlyle  had  a  wonderful  power  of  sketch- 
ing, in  a  few  words,  physical  and  mental  portraits  of 
the  men  he  met,  somewhat  resembling  the  skill  of 
Thomas  Nast  in  the  grotesque  caricatures  he  has  con- 
tributed to  "  Harper's  Weekly."  The  two  Thomases 
had  this  in  common,  that  every  peculiarity  of  face, 
feature,  shape  of  the  head,  color  of  the  hair,  move- 
ment of  the  body,  or  any  other  merely  physical  char- 
acteristic, was  made  significant  of  mental  or  moral 
qualities  in  the  person  delineated.  Nast  contributed, 
more  than  anybody  else,  to  the  overthrow  of  "  the 
Tweed  Ring"  which  ruled,  robbed,  and  might  have 
ruined  New  York;  and  he  did  it  by  his  marvellous 
appeals  to  the  eye  of  the  ordinary  honest  voter,  who 
was  perhaps  incompetent  to  form  a  rational  opinion 
of  rascalities  through  words  addressed  to  his  reason 
and  imagination.  "  Oh,  them  picters ! "  groaned 
Tweed ;  "  that  was  what  wrecked  us  ! "  Carlyle's 
portraits  by  the  pen  are  similar  to  those  of  Nast  by 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  249 

the  pencil,  inasmuch  as  they  agree  in  connecting 
physiology  with  psychology,  and  making  a  man's 
inward  nature  correspond  to  the  exaggerated  traits 
of  his  bodily  organization. 

Carlyle  could  not  restrain  this  tendency  of  his 
mind,  even  in  characterizing  his  friends.  Much  as  he 
delighted  in  Emerson's  books,  he  complained  that  his 
thoughts,  though  full  of  soul,  lacked  body.  His  own 
thinking,  even  on  the  highest  themes,  tended  to  em- 
body itself  in  palpable  forms ;  and,  except  in  the 
vague  background  of  his  word-pictures,  where  the 
Eternal  came  in,  his  imagination  really  "bodied 
forth "  that  which  his  spiritual  eye  discerned.  In 
the  moods  in  which  he  appeared  as  a  humorist  and 
satirist,  —  as  distinguished  from  his  loftiest  moods  in 
which  he  appeared  as  a  thinker  and  seer,  —  his  wit 
and  humor  rushed  by  instinct  into  forms  truly  Rabe- 
laisian. In  particular,  he  cannot  help  letting  his 
mind  run  riot  in  picturing  individuals.  Thus  he 
speaks,  in  1837,  of  his  friend,  Miss  Martineau,  as  "  a 
genuine  little  poetess,  buckramed,  swathed  like  a 
mummy  into  socinian  and  political-economy  formulas ; 
and  yet  verily  alive  in  the  inside  of  that !  "  In  a  let- 
ter, dated  November,  1838,  he  invites  Emerson  to 
visit  England,  and  after  mentioning  several  men  who 
will  welcome  him,  he  adds  that  "  old  Rogers,  with 
his  pale  head,  —  white,  bare,  and  cold  as  snow,  — 
will  work  on  you  with  those  large,  blue  eyes,  cruel? 
sorrowful,  and  that  sardonic  shelf-chin."  He  met 
Webster  in  England,  in  1839,  and  he  writes  to  his 


250  EMERSON  AND   CAELYLE. 

friend :  "  Not  many  days  ago,  I  saw  at  breakfast  the 
notablest  of  all  your  notabilities,  Daniel  Webster. 
He  is  a  magnificent  specimen ;  you  might  say  to  all 
the  world,  « This  is  your  Yankee  Englishman ;  such 
limbs  we  make  in  Yankeeland.'  As  a  logic-fencer, 
advocate,  or  parliamentary  Hercules,  one  would  be 
inclined  to  back  him  at  first  sight  against  all  the  ex- 
tant world.  The  tanned  complexion,  that  amorphous, 
crag-like  face  ;  the  dull,  black  eyes,  under  their  preci- 
pice of  brows,  like  dull  anthracite  furnaces,  needing 
only  to  be  blown ;  the  mastiff-mouth,  accurately 
closed,  —  I  have  not  traced  as  much  of  silent  Ber- 
sekir-rage,  that  I  remember  of,  in  any  other  man." 
After  this  comes  a  portrait  of  Walter  Savage  Landor : 
"  A  tall,  broad,  burly  man,  with  gray  hair,  and  large, 
fierce-rolling  eyes ;  of  the  most  restless,  impetuous 
vivacity,  not  to  be  held  in  by  the  most  perfect  breed- 
ing, —  expressing  itself  in  high-colored  superlatives, 
indeed,  in  reckless  exaggeration,  now  and  then  in  a 
short  dry  laugh,  not  of  sport,  but  of  mockery  ;  a  wild 
man,  whom  no  extent  of  culture  had  been  able  to 
tame."  Landor  was  the  original  of  Dickens's  Boy- 
thorn,  in  "  Bleak  House ; "  but  is  there  not  much  of 
Boythorn  in  Carlyle's  own  wild  diatribes  against 
things  and  persons  ?  Milnes,  one  of  the  English 
friends  who  most  appreciated  him,  he  describes  as 
"  a  pretty,  little  robin-redbreast  of  a  man."  How 
cruel  this  is !  Sumner  told  the  present  writer  that,, 
about  the  time  when  Carlyle  wrote  this  to  Emerson, 
he  was  a  guest  at  one  of  Rogers's  breakfasts,  and  hatf 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.        251 

occasion  to  mention,  with  great  warmth,  the  mer- 
its of  Carlyle  as  a  writer  and  thinker.  He  found 
not  the  slightest  response  from  the  many  eminent 
men  present;  and  Milnes,  who  sat  near  him,  whis- 
pered in  his  ear  that  he  perfectly  agreed  with  him, 
but  that  he  was  the  only  Englishman  present  who 
sympathized  with  Sumner's  admiration  of  the  great 
man. 

Tennyson  was  another  friend  of  Carlyle.  The  lat- 
ter liked  him  as  a  companion,  but  often  lectured  and 
hectored  him  on  the  folly  of  writing  in  verse.  He 
is  described  in  these  volumes  (1844)  "  as  one  of  the 
finest-looking  men  in  the  world.  A  great  shock  of 
rough,  dusty-dark  hair ;  bright,  laughing  hazel  eyes ; 
massive,  aquiline  face  —  most  massive,  yet  most  deli- 
cate ;  of  sallow-brown  complexion,  almost  Indian-look- 
ing ;  clothes  cynically  loose,  free-and-easy ;  smokes 
infinite  tobacco.  His  voice  is  musically  metallic,  fit 
for  loud  laughter  and  piercing  wail,  and  all  that  may 
lie  between ;  speech  and  speculation  free  and  plen- 
teous :  I  do  not  meet,  in  these  late  decades,  such  com- 
pany over  a  pipe."  Tennyson,  if  he  chose,  could  tell 
strange  stories  of  the  many  controversies  in  which 
the  two  smokers  engaged,  which  the  soothing  influ- 
ence of  tobacco  could  not  prevent  from  occasionally 
assuming  an  irritating  and  almost  furious  form  of 
disagreement.  A  friend  of  both  was  once  present  at 
a  conversation  between  the  two,  in  which  Carlyle 
apologized  for  the  horrible  cruelties  inflicted  by 
William  the  Conqueror  on  his  Saxon  subjects,  as 


252  EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

minutely  narrated  by  Tennyson.  The  discussion 
waxed  warm  between  the  accuser  and  the  defender 
of  the  accused ;  Carlyle  becoming  all  the  more  exas- 
perating from  the  pitying  way  in  which  he  conde- 
scended to  inform  Tennyson  that  he  did  not  know 
how  savage  populations  should  be  governed,  when 
their  government  was  intrusted  to  a  firm  hand,  ut- 
terly regardless  of  Exeter  Hall  philanthropy  and  the 
sentimentality  of  writers  of  verses.  In  1867,  Carlyle 
writes  to  Emerson  that  he  and  a  lady  friend  had  read 
Tennyson's  "  Idyls  of  the  King "  "  with  profound 
recognition  of  the  finely  elaborated  execution,  and 
also  of  the  inward  perfection  of  vacancy,  and,  to  say 
truth,  with  considerable  impatience  at  being  treated 
so  very  like  infants,  though  the  lollipops  were  so 
superlative.  We  gladly  changed  for  one  of  Emer- 
son's '  English  Traits/  and  read  that,  with  increasing 
and  ever  increasing  satisfaction  every  evening,  bless- 
ing Heaven  that  there  were  still  books  for  grown-up 
people  too."  There  is  really  something  subtle  in  this 
criticism,  exaggerated  as  its  tone  of  condemnation  is ; 
and  most  readers  of  the  "  Idyls  "  must  feel  its  force, 
however  much  they  may  like  the  poems.  Amid  all 
the  clash  of  arms,  and  the  heroic  deeds  of  Tennyson's 
heroes,  they  must  have  a  feeling  of  that  "inward 
vacancy"  of  the  true  knightly  spirit.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  define  in  what  this  inward  vacancy  con- 
sists ;  but  it  is  not  felt  by  the  reader  of  Scott's  heroic 
romances,  or  of  Carlyle's  "  Heroes  and  the  Heroic  in 
History." 


EMERSON  AND  CAKLYLE.  253 

Nothing  injured  Carlyle  more,  in  the  opinion  of 
those  Americans  who  most  admired  and  appreciated 
his  genius,  than  the  position  he  took  in  regard  to 
negro  slavery.  Before  our  Civil  War  broke  out  he 
had  declared  his  conviction  that  "  Quashee "  must  be 
compelled  to  work  even  by  the  stimulus  of  the  lash. 
He  always  raved  whenever  he  spoke  of  the  lazy  Afri- 
can ;  and  he  always  spelled  negro  with  two  #'s.  He 
appeared  absolutely  insane,  or  inhuman,  whenever  the 
"  nigger  "  question  came  before  his  judgment  for  set- 
tlement. Some  thirty  years  ago,  a  radical  club  was 
established  in  Boston,  composed  of  members  repre- 
senting every  variety  of  political,  religious,  and  philo- 
sophical dissent.  The  walls  of  the  room  where  the 
members  assembled  were  lined  with  photographs  of 
the  most  prominent  foreign  and  domestic  champions 
of  things  as  they  "  ought  to  be."  On  one  evening 
Emerson  made  some  remarks  on  a  purely  intellectual 
topic,  having  no  possible  relation  to  slavery,  except 
the  slavery  of  even  the  educated  mind  of  the  country 
to  routine,  and  Carlyle  was  referred  to  as  one  of  its 
most  earnest  opponents.  Then  Garrison  rose  from 
his  seat,  glared  through  his  spectacles  at  the  portrait 
of  Carlyle,  and  said  that  no  club  of  humane  and  hope- 
ful men  could  look  at  that  face  without  horror  and 
disgust,  and  he  trusted  that  the  moral  sentiment  of 
those  present  would  demand,  not  that  the  portrait 
should  be  taken  down,  but  that  it  should  be  turned  to 
the  wall,  so  that  the  hateful  lineaments  of  that  enemy 
of  freedom  might  not  affront  the  eyes  of  any  honest 


254        EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

reformer.  Of  course  the  advice  was  not  followed; 
but  it  showed  the  intensity  of  hatred  which  the  great 
leader  of  the  Abolitionists  felt  for  the  cynical  defender 
of  the  policy  which  would  scourge  the  negro  to  his 
daily  task,  if  he  would  not  go  to  it  willingly.  The 
truth  is  that  Caiiyle  was  himself  whipped  on  by  his 
sense  of  duty  to  undertake  work  in  which  he  found 
little  enjoyment  and  much  pain ;  and  he  considered 
that  others  should  be  made  to  do  by  outward  compul, 
sion  what  he  did,  against  the  grain,  by  inward 
strength  of  will.  One  of  the  most  striking  epistles 
in  this  correspondence  is  the  letter  to  Emerson,  in 
August,  1849,  in  which  he  furiously  inveighs  against 
the  pauperism  of  Ireland.  Nearly  one  half  of  the 
whole  population,  he  says,  receives  "Poor-Law  ra- 
tions," while  the  land  is  uncultivated,  and  the  land- 
lords are  hiding  from  bailiffs.  "  Such  a  state  of 
things  was  never  heard  of  under  this  sky  before.  .  .  . 
'  What  is  to  be  done  ? '  asks  every  one.  .  .  .  '  Black- 
lead  these  two  million  idle  beggars,'  I  sometimes 
advised, '  and  sell  them  in  Brazil  as  niggers,  —  per- 
haps Parliament,  on  sweet  constraint,  will  allow  you 
to  advance  them  to  be  niggers  ! ' '  Of  course  this 
burst  of  wrath,  if  taken  as  an  expression  of  opiiiioiij 
would  rather  befit  the  King  of  Dahomey,  after  he  had 
imbibed  a  more  than  usual  amount  of  "  fire-water," 
than  a  civilized  human  being;  but  through  all  this 
grotesque  exaggeration  there  runs  this  principle,  that 
all  persons  who  will  not  work  for  a  living  should  be 
either  forced  to  work  for  it,  or  should  cease  to  live. 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  255 

He  detested  all  philanthropy  which  saved  lazy  people 
from  the  consequences  of  their  laziness.  "  Let  them 
work  or  die,"  seems  to  have  been  his  austere  motto ; 
"  and  the  sooner  they  die,  the  better.  Clean  the 
earth  of  these  unclean  things  who  have  the  impudence 
to  declare  their  right  to  0z-ist,  while  they  depend  on 
the  charity  of  real  laborers  to  stti-sist." 

When  he  applied  this  principle,  that  pauperism  was 
the  worst  of  crimes,  to  our  Civil  War,  he  was  met 
by  the  obvious  objection  that  about  all  the  work  done 
at  the  South  was  done  by  "  niggers  ; "  that  the  owners 
of  these  "  niggers  "  devoted  most  of  their  time  to  that 
constitutional  palaver  which  he  held  in  special  abhor- 
rence ;  and  that,  as  "  captains  of  industry,"  they  did 
little  or  nothing  to  promote,  advance,  or  increase  the 
remuneration  of  Labor.  A  New  Englander  invented 
the  cotton-gin;  they  stole  the  invention,  starved  the 
inventor,  and  then  were  careless  of  almost  all  other 
improvements  by  which  one  machine  does  the  work  of 
a  hundred  men.  They  necessarily  made  the  South 
poor;  and  then  went  to  war  because  they  conceived 
that  the  poverty  of  the  South  was  owing  to  the  en- 
croachments of  the  North  on  their  constitutional  rights. 
During  the  war  Carlyle  was  on  the  side  of  the  Con- 
federates ;  and  the  warm  feeling  with  which  Emerson 
regarded  his  friend  palpably  cooled.  Meanwhile  Car- 
lyle's  fiercest  libels  on  the  North  were  not  contained  in 
letters  to  Emerson.  Some  were  published  in  organs  of 
English  opinion ;  some  were  uttered  to  Americans  who 
called  upon  him  at  his  Chelsea  home ;  and  there  is  a 


256        EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE. 

rumor  that  he  condensed  his  opinion  on  the  whole  mat- 
ter to  the  accomplished  editor  of  these  volumes  in  the 
following  words,  delivered  in  his  broadest  Scotch  ac- 
cent :  "  And  as  for  your  war,  it  seems  to  me  simply 
this :  that  the  South  said  to  the  nigger,  '  God  bless 

you  and  be  a  slave  ; '  and  the  North  said,  '  G d 

you,  and  be  a  freeman ! ' "  After  the  war  was  closed, 
Emerson  tells  him,  in  1870,  u  Every  reading  person  in 
America  holds  you  in  exceptional  regard.  .  .  .  They 
have  forgotten  your  scarlet  sins  before  or  during  the 
war.  I  have  long  ceased  to  apologize  for  or  explain 
your  savage  sayings  about  America  or  other  republics, 
or  publics,  and  am  willing  that  anointed  men  bearing 
with  them  authentic  charters  shall  be  laws  to  them- 
selves, as  Plato  willed."  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that 
the  American  mind  has  a  very  feeble  memory :  a  few 
years  roll  on,  and  benefactors  and  traducers  are  alike 
forgotten ;  and  the  animosities  of  the  past  slip  out  of 
the  public  heart  and  brain,  intently  engaged  as  both 
are  in  the  Present  and  the  Future. 

As  almost  every  letter  of  this  unique  correspon- 
dence suggests  topics  on  which  a  reviewer  is  tempted 
to  comment,  it  is  difficult  to  stay  the  hand  while  writ- 
ing about  it.  The  letters  of  Carlyle  represent  him 
both  at  his  best  and  his  worst ;  the  letters  of  Emerson 
throng  with  thoughts  and  experiences,  and  the  style  is 
as  compact  and  brilliant  as  that  of  his  published  es- 
says. These  friends  write  to  each  other  because  they 
have  something  to  say ;  and  they  say  it  with  all  the 
care  and  labor  in  composition  which  they  would  have 


EMERSON  AND  CARLYLE.  257 

exerted  in  works  directly  written  for  the  public  eye. 
The  perfect  sincerity  of  each  is  preserved ;  every  re- 
flection and  sentiment  is  genuine  and  true  to  charac- 
ter; yet  the  form  of  expression  displays  none  of  the 
diffuseness  and  slovenliness  common  to  the  familiar 
correspondence  of  even  eminent  men.  Perhaps  this 
brief  notice  of  a  book  which  is  destined  to  last  for  a 
century  or  two,  at  least,  cannot  be  more  appropriately 
brought  to  an  end  than  by  referring  to  a  single  inci- 
dent which  brought  the  hearts  of  the  two  strong  men 
into  close  and  pathetic  communion.  Emerson  lost 
"  the  hyacinthirie  boy,"  the  subject  of  his  "  Threnody." 
He  had,  he  writes  to  Carlyle,  other  children,  "  but  a 
promise  like  that  boy's  I  shall  never  see.  How  often 
I  have  pleased  myself  that  one  day  I  should  send  to 
you  this  Morning  Star  of  mine,  and  stay  at  home  so 
gladly  behind  such  a  representative.  I  dare  not  fath- 
om the  Invisible  and  Untold  to  inquire  what  relations 
to  my  Departed  ones  I  yet  sustain.  Lydian,  the  poor 
Lydian,  moans  at  home  by  day  and  night.  You,  too, 
will  grieve  for  us,  afar."  This  letter  reached  Carlyle 
when  he  was  in  Dumfries,  called  thither  by  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  death  of  his  wife's  mother.  "  It  is  many 
years,"  he  replies,  "  since  I  have  stood  so  in  close  con- 
tact face  to  face  with  the  reality  of  Earth,  with  its  hag- 
gard ugliness,  its  divine  beauty,  its  depths  of  Death 
and  of  Life.  Yesterday,  one  of  the  stillest  Sundays, 
I  sat  long  by  the  side  of  the  swift  river  Nith ;  saun- 
tered among  woods  all  vocal  only  with  rooks  and 
pairing  birds.  The  hills  are  often  white  with  snow- 

]7 


258  EMERSON  AND  CAKLYLE. 

powder;  black,  brief  spring-tempests  rush  fiercely 
down  from  them,  and  then  again  the  sky  looks  forth 
with  a  pale,  pure  brightness,  —  like  Eternity  from  be- 
hind Time.  The  sky,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  is  always 
blue,  pure,  changeless  azure ;  rains  and  tempests  are 
only  for  the  little  dwellings  where  men  abide.  Let 
us  think  of  this,  too.  Think  of  this,  thou  sorrowing 
mother !  Thy  boy  has  escaped  many  showers." 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

THE  death  of  the  greatest  of  American  men  of  let- 
ters —  a  man  who  was  at  once  an  elemental  thinker 
and  an  elemental  power  —  immediately  drew  forth 
such  a  series  of  tributes  to  his  genius  and  character 
from  such  a  wide  variety  of  thoughtful  minds,  that  it 
is  difficult  at  this  date  to  say  anything  of  him  which 
has  not  been  said  before.  But  perhaps  in  surveying 
him  as  a  poet,  some  additional  reasons  may  be 
given  in  proof  that  he  was  original  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  word  is  applied  to  the  recognized  masters 
of  song. 

In  estimating  the  relative  worth  and  rank  of  a  poet, 
we  are  bound  to  consider  not  merely  his  possession 
of  "  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine,"  but  the  pene- 
tration and  extent  of  his  vision  and  the  originality  of 
his  faculty.  Did  his  spiritual  insight  go  deeper  than 
that  of  other  poets  of  his  age  and  generation  ?  Did 
he  advance  beyond  the  recognized  frontier  of  the 
ideal  world  in  his  time,  and  add  a  new  province  to  it  ? 


260  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

Were  his  verses  imitations  or  revelations  ?  Did  his 
poetic  faculty  work  on  old  materials,  adding  only  an 
individual  flavor  to  new  combinations  of  the  old ;  or 
did  he  create  or  spiritually  discern  new  materials  for 
poetic  treatment  ?  In  the  case  of  Emerson,  these 
questions  can  be  answered  only  by  a  survey  of  what 
had  been  done  by  the  great  poets  of  the  century, 
when  (to  use  General  Sheridan's  significant  phrase) 
he  "  took  the  affair  in  hand." 

Everybody  in  the  least  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  the  literature  of  Great  Britain  knows  that  during 
the  later  years  of  the  last  century  an  insurrection 
broke  out  against  the  tyranny  of  the  school  of  Dryden 
and  Pope,  as  exercised  by  their  degenerate  successors. 
This  revolt  was  called  "  a  going  back  to  Nature ; "  and 
Burns  and  Cowper,  each  from  a  widely  different  point 
of  view,  exemplified  it  in  fresh  and  original  poems. 
One  of  Burns's  songs,  or  one  of  Cowper's  minute  de- 
scriptions of  natural  objects,  when  placed  by  the  side 
of  the  conventional  verse  or  rather  the  rhymed  prose 
of  the  time,  made  the  latter  appear  thin  in  substance, 
meagre  in  meaning,  and  entirely  destitute  of  any 
poetic  quality  whatever.  There  was  no  possibility  of 
a  new  Dryden  or  Pope  coming  forth  to  vindicate  the 
worth  of  the  old  poetic  method;  that  method  was 
then  represented  in  the  vapid  translations  of  Hoole 
and  the  plaintive  imbecilities  of  Hayley  ;  and  after 
Burns  had  sung  and  Cowper  had  described,  there 
could  be  no  revival  of  the  poetry  of  Nature  which  did 
not  deny  the  validity  of  the  conventional  canons  and 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  261 

standards  of  "  taste  "  which  such  critics  as  Dr.  John- 
son had  announced.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
merits  of  the  wits  and  poets  of  the  Age  of  Queen 
Anne,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  rebellion  against 
their  authority  ended  in  producing  a  new  era  in  Eng- 
lish poetry,  comparable  only  to  that  great  outburst  of 
poetic  inspiration  which  occurred  in  what  is  called  the 
Age  of  Elizabeth. 

The  man  who  stands  in  literary  history  as  the  head 
and  heart  of  this  revolution  was  William  Wordsworth. 
He  it  was  who  first,  among  the  poets  of  his  day, 
aimed  not  only  to  describe  but  to  interpret  Nature. 
By  constant  communion  with  her  forms  and  varying 
aspects  he  came  at  last  to  see  that  she  was  spiritually 
alive,  —  that  his  own  soul  was  not  only  touched  and 
inspired  by  intently  viewing  her  external  shows  and 
appearances,  but  that  the  soul  animating  Nature  was 
akin  to  his  own ;  and  that  if 

"  The  discerning  intellect  of  man 
Were  wedded  to  this  goodly  universe 
In  love  and  holy  passion," 

the  fantastic  dreams  of  the  old  mythological  poets 
would  be  more  than  realized,  —  would,  indeed,  be 

"  A  simple  produce  of  the  common  day." 

And  then,  anticipating  this  marriage  of  the  mind 
which  pervades  the  universe  of  matter  with  the  mind 
of  man,  he  professes  to  write  in  advance  its  mystic 
epithalamium :  — 


262  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

"  I,  long  before  the  blissful  hour  arrives, 
Would  chant,  in  lonely  peace,  the  spousal  hour 
Of  this  great  consummation  ;  and  by  words 
Which  speak  of  nothing  more  than  what  we  are, 
Would  I  arouse  the  sensual  from  their  sleep 
Of  death,  and  win  the  vacant  and  the  vain 
To  noble  raptures." 

It  is  needless  to  state  how  long  Wordsworth  worked, 
year  after  year,  in  many  forms  of  poetic  expression, 
to  inculcate  his  poetic  creed  to  an  unresponsive  and 
unsympathetic  public.  The  creed  itself  only  became 
popular  when  it  was  taken  up  by  Byron;  and  then 
the  splendor  and  passion  of  Byron's  rhetoric  made  it 
accepted,  though  it  did  not  necessarily  make  it  under- 
stood. Most  of  the  eminent  poets  of  the  century 
more  or  less  felt  the  influence  of  Wordsworth's  fun- 
damental conception  of  Nature  as  spiritually  alive; 
in  poem  after  poem  they  reproduced  it,  modified,  of 
course,  by  their  own  individuality  and  way  of  looking 
at  Nature  and  man.  But  in  no  literary  history  of  the 
nineteenth  century  has  Wordsworth's  priority  in  the 
matter  been  fully  recognized.  Now,  nothing  is  more 
capable  of  demonstration  than  the  fact  that  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1798  Wordsworth  visited  the  ruins  of  Tintern 
Abbey,  and  that  in  a  few  days  he  wrote  the  poem  un- 
der that  name  which  introduced  into  English  poetry  an 
element  it  never  had  before,  and  has  never  parted  with 
since.  Chronologically,  it  precedes  everything  in  the 
same  strain  written  by  Byron,  Shelley,  or  any  other 
poet  of  the  time ;  and,  in  addition  to  this,  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  was  written  plainly  indicate  that 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  263 

its  thoughts  and  sentiments  had  long  been  familiar  to 
his  experience,  and  had,  indeed,  been  domesticated  in 
his  soul  before  he  poured  them  forth  in  those  memora- 
ble lines.  In  his  note  to  the  poem  he  simply  says  : 

"  Tintern  Abbey,  July,  1798.  —  No  poem  of  mine  was  composed 
under  circumstances  more  pleasant  for  me  to  remember  than  this. 
I  began  it  upon  leaving  Tintern,  after  crossing  the  Wye,  and  con- 
cluded it  just  as  I  was  entering  Bristol  in  the  evening,  after  a  ram- 
ble of  four  or  five  days  with  my  sister.  Not  a  line  of  it  was  altered, 
and  not  any  part  of  it  written  down  till  I  reached  Bristol." 

Indeed,  he  only  finished  it  in  time  to  be  printed 
in  that  volume  of  "Lyrical  Ballads,"  the  conjoint 
production  of  Coleridge  and  himself,  which  at  once 
marked  an  era  in  English  literature,  and  gave  the 
proprietor  of  the  copyright  good  cause  for  moaning. 
Cottle,  the  publisher,  tells  us  that  "  the  sale  was  so 
low,  and  the  severity  of  most  of  the  reviews  so  great, 
that  its  progress  to  oblivion  seemed  to  be  certain." 
He  printed  five  hundred  copies  of  a  volume  that  con- 
tained "  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner "  and 
"  Lines  written  a  few  miles  above  Tintern  Abbey,"  — 
not  to  mention  "  We  are  Seven,"  and  other  pieces  of 
Wordsworth  now  universally  popular,  —  and  was  glad 
to  get  rid  of  them  as  best  he  could.  Afterward,  in 
selling  out  his  stock  to  the  Longmans,  he  found  the 
copyright  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  was  valued  at  nil ; 
and  he  had  therefore  the  pleasure  of  returning  it  to 
the  authors,  as  a  present  which  might  be  good  for 
something  to  them,  though  it  had  proved  worse  than 
good  for  nothing  to  him. 


264  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

From  this  inauspicious  beginning  the  grand  poetic 
revolution  of  the  nineteenth  century  tottered  and 
stumbled  on  for  a  number  of  years,  until  Byron  popu- 
larized it.  The  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  indicated  the  two 
extremes  of  Wordsworth's  genius.  In  "  We  are 
Seven,"  he  showed  that  a  simplicity  of  style  bordering 
very  nearly  on  the  literal  sing-song  of  a  nursery 
rhyme  might,  if  it  had  genuine  feeling  back  of  it, 
touch  and  unseal  fountains  of  emotion  in  the  uni- 
versal human  heart;  that  a  poet  can  be  thoroughly 
childlike,  abounding  in  the  joyous  consciousness  of 
life,  without  degenerating  into  childishness,  which  is 
the  pathetic  sign  of  the  senility  of  that  second  child- 
hood which  is  the  dreadful  reverse  of  the  first;  and 
that  the  refusal  of  the  guileless  child  to  admit  the 
idea  of  death  into  her  mind  shows  that  the  glad  per- 
ception of  the  possession  of  life  is  a  prophecy  of  its 
indefinite  continuance.  It  is  curious  that  this  little 
poem  —  the  one  by  which  Wordsworth  is  universally 
known,  which  is  in  all  school-books,  and  which  has 
been  committed  to  memory  by  thousands  ignorant  of 
his  other  works  —  would  never  have  been  printed  had 
the  advice  of  a  near  and  dear  friend  of  the  author 
been  taken.  This  friend  found  little  fault  with  other 
pieces  contained  in  the  volume;  but  he  implored 
Wordsworth  not  to  make  himself  "  everlastingly 
ridiculous"  by  including  "We  are  Seven"  in  the 
collection.  Men  of  original  genius,  like  Wordsworth 
and  Emerson,  are  easily  indifferent  to  the  invectives 
or  gibes  of  their  pronounced  enemies  ;  the  real  dan- 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  265 

ger  comes  from  professed  friends,  who  beg  them, 
from  the  best  of  motives,  to  distrust  their  genius 
whenever  its  audacities  give  too  violent  a  shock  to 
accredited  notions  of  "  taste." 

If  "  We  are  Seven  "  represents  the  simplest  expres- 
sion of  Wordsworth's  genius,  the  lines  on  Tintern 
Abbey  represent  its  loftiest.  Artistically  the  poem  is 
almost  perfect.  Though  written  in  blank  verse,  it 
has  such  a  deep,  impassioned  undertone  of  melody, 
and  its  transitions  from  one  mental  mood  to  another 
are  so  finely  harmonized,  that  Wordsworth  was  partly 
justified  in  his  hope  that  it  might  be  called  an  "  ode." 
After  describing  his  youthful  delight  in  the  forms  and 
colors  of  Nature,  when  they  needed  no  interest  "  un- 
borrowed  of  the  eye,"  but  were  to  him  "  as  an  ap- 
petite "  and  "  haunted  him  like  a  passion,"  he  goes 
on  to  state  the  compensations  which  in  after  years 
thought  and  imagination  supplied  for  the  departure 
of  youthful  impulse  and  ecstasy. 

"  That  time  is  past, 

And  all  its  aching  joys  are  now  no  more, 
And  all  its  dizzy  raptures.     Not  for  this 
Faint  I,  nor  mourn  nor  murmur  ;  other  gifts 
Have  followed,  —  for  such  loss,  I  would  believe 
Abundant  recompense.     For  I  have  learned 
To  look  on  Nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth  ;  but  hearing  oftentimes 
The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Not  harsh  nor  grating,  though  of  ample  power 
To  chasten  and  subdue.     And  I  have  felt 
A  Presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 


266  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

In  this  passage  we  have  the  spiritual  side  of  Words- 
worth. He  had  fairly  earned  the  right  to  have  this 
interior  life  and  meaning  of  Nature  revealed  to  him, 
because  from  his  pure  youth  to  his  pure  manhood  he 
had  been  her  worshipper.  She  yielded  to  him  the 
secret  of  some  of  her  spiritual  laws,  as  she  yielded 
to  Newton,  one  after  another,  her  physical  laws.  In- 
tense devotion  to  her  was  the  condition  on  which  she 
distributed  her  favors,  giving  impartially  to  seer  or 
scientist  the  wages  due  to  his  love  and  work.  The 
victories  of  the  scientist,  however,  are  palpable ;  his 
discoveries  can  be  demonstrated,  so  that  to  refuse 
belief  in  them  is  a  confession  of  ignorance  and 
weakness  of  understanding.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Discoveries  of  the  poet  depend  for  their  reception  and 
verification  on  the  mental  and  moral  condition  and 
experience  of  his  readers.  He  has  no  mathematical 
tests  by  which  to  convict  his  unsympathetic  critics 
of  stupidity  or  lack  of  spiritual  perception  ;  accord- 
ingly, just  in  proportion  as  he  departs  from  mechan- 
ical rules  in  announcing  the  results  of  his  vital 
inspiration,  his  very  superiority  to  his  critics  furnishes 
the  grounds  for  his  condemnation. 

Wordsworth  was,  during  the  largest  portion  of  his 
life,  the  victim  of  hostile  criticism.  It  is  commonly 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  267 

taken  for  granted,  even  at  the  present  day,  that  this 
criticism  was  provoked  and  justified  by  his  own  faults 
and  absurdities  in  carrying  his  revolt  against  the  cur- 
rent poetic  diction  of  the  last  century  to  a  ridiculous 
excess.  Jeffrey,  it  is  persistently  said,  only  exposed 
and  held  up  to  scorn  the  poet's  puerilities,  common- 
places, and  obvious  violations  of  good  taste,  —  that 
is,  the  literary  sins  which  Wordsworth  committed 
through  his  passion  for  "  the  natural "  in  poetic  ex- 
pression. The  fact  is,  that  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,'* 
in  its  long  fight  with  Wordsworth,  objected  not  so 
much  to  "  the  natural "  as  to  the  supernatural  element 
in  his  poems.  While  happily  ridiculing  some  exam- 
ples of  the  bald  realism  of  the  poet  in  describing  his 
rustic  heroes  and  heroines,  it  admitted  that  he  was  a 
wonderfully  accurate  observer  of  external  Nature,  and 
that  he  sympathized  deeply  with  the  primal  affections 
of  the  human  heart.  Its  contempt  was  specially  re- 
served for  the  poet's  spiritual  philosophy  of  Nature, 
which  it  called  "  stuff ; "  year  after  year  it  continued 
to  quote  those  passages  in  his  poems  which  are  now 
considered  to  prove  his  originality  and  excellence,  as 
evidences  of  his  imbecility  of  thought.  Indeed,  Jef- 
frey was  afflicted  with  a  kind  of  mental  color-blind- 
ness in  his  criticism  of  Wordsworth.  He  denied  the 
existence  of  what  he  was  disqualified  to  see ;  and  his 
dogmatism  of  judgment  was  in  exact  proportion  to 
his  lack  of  perception.  The  poet  himself  once  de- 
clared, with  unusual  bitterness,  that  Jeffrey  as  a 
lawyer  had  "taken  a  perpetual  retainer  from  his 


268  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

own  incapacity  to  plead  against  my  claims  to  public 
approbation." 

Probably  the  subtilety  and  depth  of  Wordsworth's 
insight  into  Nature  is  even  now  unappreciated  by  a 
large  class  of  highly  cultivated  men  of  the  world.  He 
tells  us,  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  that  the  secret  of  the 
loftiest  poetry  is  hidden  from  confirmed  worldlings, 
though  they  may  themselves  be  competent  to  write 
brilliant  and  telling  verses,  and  pass  in  popular  esti- 
mation for  poets. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  a  manlike  Macaulay,  with 
his  enormous  range  of  reading,  his  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  many  literatures,  and  his  intercourse 
with  the  most  scholarly  society  in  Great  Britain, 
would  be  able  to  know,  as  late  as  1850,  the  real  posi- 
tion which  Wordsworth  occupied  in  the  history  of 
English  poetry  ;  yet  in  July  of  that  year  he  notes  in 
his  diary  that  he  has  read  "  The  Prelude,"  and  his 
opinion  of  it  is  this :  "  The  story  is  the  old  story. 
There  are  the  old  raptures  about  mountains  and  cat- 
aracts ;  the  old  flimsy  philosophy  about  the  effect  of 
scenery  on  the  mind ;  the  old  crazy,  mystical  meta- 
physics ;  the  endless  wilderness  of  dull  and  prosaic 
twaddle;  and  here  and  there  fine  descriptions  and 
energetic  declarations  interspersed."  It  will  be  seen 
that  in  this  judgment  Macaulay  re-echoes  Jeffrey's 
scorn  of  what  is  essential  to  an  intelligent  understand- 
ing of  the  poet.  And  to  crown  all,  the  person  selected 
to  write  the  biography  of  Wordsworth,  his  own  nephew, 
—  "Christopher  Wordsworth,  D.D.,  Canon  of  West- 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  269 

minster,"  as  he  calls  himself  on  the  titlepage  of  his 
two  dull  octavos, —  is  very  careful  to  guard  his  illus- 
trious uncle  from  any  reputation  he  might  gain  as  a 
poet  at  the  expense  of  casting  doubt  on  his  conven- 
tional orthodoxy  of  creed.  He  is  as  blind  as  a  bat 
and  deaf  as  an  adder  to  the  revelations  which  Words- 
worth derived  through  the  sight  and  hearing  of  his 
soul.  When  the  biographer  comes  to  the  lines  on 
Tintern  Abbey,  we  naturally  expect  he  will  welcome 
it  as  the  poem  which  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  English 
poetry ;  but  he  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  thinks  that "  the  reflecting  reader  "  may  "  be 
of  opinion  that  a  worshipper  of  Nature  is  in  danger  of 
divinizing  the  creation  and  of  dishonoring  the  Creator, 
and  that  therefore  some  portions  of  this  poem  might 
be  perverted  to  serve  the  purposes  of  a  popular  and 
pantheistic  philosophy."  When  "  the  reflecting  reader" 
conceives  of  this  "  danger  "  to  the  Christian  religion, 
whither  is  he  to  fly  for  consolation  ?  Why,  to  the 
"  Evening  Voluntaries  "  of  the  same  poet.  In  these 
he  will  learn  that  Wordsworth  had  no  idea  of  "  dis- 
honoring the  Creator "  in  announcing  that  he  might 
be  spiritually  discerned  in  the  material  universe  he 
had  created. 

These  examples  of  the  inapprehension  and  miscon- 
ception of  Wordsworth's  genius  by  persons  whose 
culture  and  position  place  them  above  the  ordinary 
mass  of  readers,  double  the  difficulty  of  showing  in 
what  respect  Emerson  advanced  beyond  Wordsworth, 
and  beyond  all  of  Wordsworth's  successors,  in  the 


270  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

spiritual  interpretation  of  Nature.  It  must  be  taken 
for  granted  that  Wordsworth's  experience  was  the 
result  and  record  of  genuine  insight,  and  that  it 
cannot  be  curtly  dismissed  as  "  crazy,  mystical  meta- 
physics," before  Emerson  can  even  obtain  a  hearing ; 
for  he  undoubtedly  was  more  crazy  and  mystical 
than  Wordsworth  dared  to  be,  while  independently 
following  in  the  path  which  Wordsworth  had  marked 
out. 

It  was  a  happy  thought  of  a  Boston  newspaper 
editor  to  reprint  Emerson's  poem  of  "  Good-by,  proud 
World !  I  'm  going  Home,"  when  his  death  was  an- 
nounced. The  verses  were  written  when  the  poet  was 
a  teacher  in  a  Eoston  school,  and  his  "  Sylvan  Home  " 
was  a  boarding-house  in  Roxbury,  only  two  or  three 
miles  distant,  but  at  that  time  a  rustic  paradise  of 
woods,  rocks,  and  hills.  In  these  lines  he  made  his 
first  poetic  declaration  of  intellectual  and  moral  inde- 
pendence. Most  of  the  hours  of  the  day  he  spent  in 
teaching,  by  the  accredited  methods,  English,  Latin, 
elocution,  and  rhetoric  to  youths  and  maidens,  and 
the  duty  was  evidently  a  drudgery  ;  for  when  in  the 
afternoons  he  escaped  to  the  country,  he  found  many 
a  secret  nook,  bearing  no  print  of  "  vulgar  feet  and 
sacred  to  thought  and  God,"  where  he  might  indulge 
to  the  utmost  his  communion  with  Nature  ;  and  then 
burst  forth  his  exulting  joy  in  his  deliverance  from 
tasks  which  limited  the  free  expression  of  his  individ- 
ual genius :  — 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  271 

"  Oh,  when  I  am  safe  in  my  sylvan  home, 
I  tread  on  the  pride  of  Greece  and  Rome  ; 
And  when  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines, 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines, 
I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools  and  the  learned  clan  ; 
For  what  are  they  all,  in  their  high  conceit, 
When  man  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet  1 " 

It  is  unfortunate  that  this  poem  should  be  generally 
considered  as  the  product  of  his  maturer  years,  when 
he  escaped  from  Boston  to  his  chosen  home  in  Con- 
cord. The  verses  are  those  of  a  young  college  gradu- 
ate, supporting  himself  by  teaching  school  during  the 
period  he  is  studying  to  prepare  himself  for  a  profes- 
sion. As  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  "  godly 
ministers,"  Emerson  was  naturally  drawn  to  the  pul- 
pit rather  than  to  the  dissecting-room  or  the  bar ; 
and  he  began  his  professional  career  as  a  Unitarian 
clergyman.  Though  in  a  few  years  he  resigned  his 
ministerial  charge,  because  he  differed  from  his  church 
and  congregation  in  regard  to  the  obligation  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  there  is  a  singular  unanimity  of  opin- 
ion as  to  his  excellence  as  a  pastor  and  preacher ;  and 
this  opinion  seems  to  have  been  based  rather  on  the 
singular  beauty  and  sweetness  of  his  character  than 
on  his  doctrines  or  his  eloquence.  There  was  a  celes- 
tial something  in  him  to  which  his  admirers  gave 
the  word  "angelic."  Even  his  theological  opponents 
among  the  Unitarians  admitted  the  exceptional  purity 
of  his  conduct  and  behavior,  while  regretting  his  au- 
dacities of  speculation.  They  found  that  nothing  they 


272  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

said  could  provoke  him  into  controversy ;  and  as  like 
a  sunbeam  he  had  glided  into  their  sect,  so  like  a 
sunbeam  he  glided  out  of  it.  The  moment  he  felt 
that  his  position  as  a  clergyman  interfered  with  his 
mental  liberty,  he  quietly  dropped  the  "  Reverend " 
before  his  name,  and  became  plain  Mr.  Emerson. 
How  deeply  he  sympathized  with  his  church  while  he 
was  its  pastor  is  indicated  by  a  hymn  written  on  the 
occasion  of  one  of  its  anniversaries.  As  this  is  not 
included  in  either  of  the  two  volumes  of  his  poetical 
works,  it  may  here  be  quoted  as  showing  the  depth, 
sweetness,  and  solemnity  of  his  religious  sentiment  at 
very  near  the  time  when  his  connection  with  the 
church  he  served  was  voluntarily  broken  off :  — 

"  We  love  the  venerable  house 
Our  fathers  built  to  God  ; 
In  heaven  are  kept  their  grateful  vows, 
Their  dust  endears  the  sod. 

"  Here  holy  thoughts  a  light  have  shed 

From  many  a  radiant  face, 
And  prayers  of  tender  hope  have  spread 
A  perfume  through  the  place. 

"  And  anxious  hearts  have  pondered  here 

The  mystery  of  life, 
And  prayed  the  Eternal  Spirit  clear 
Their  doubts  and  end  their  strife. 

"  From  humble  tenements  around 

Came  up  the  pensive  train, 
And  in  the  church  a  blessing  found, 
Which  filled  their  homes  again. 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  273 

"  For  faith  and  peace  and  mighty  love, 

That  from  the  Godhead  flow, 
Showed  them  the  life  of  heaven  above 
Springs  from  the  life  below. 

"  They  live  with  God,  their  homes  are  dust ; 

But  here  their  children  pray, 
And  in  this  fleeting  lifetime  trust 
To  find  the  narrow  way." 

So  far  as  printed  memorials  can  aid  us,  Emerson's 
progress  in  his  chosen  direction  seems  not  so  much  a 
growth  as  a  leap.  The  publication  of  the  little  volume 
called  "Nature"  lifted  the  heretic  Unitarian  parson 
into  a  leader  of  a  new  school  of  thought,  and  New 
England  transcendentalism  dates  its  existence  from 
that  charming  and  suggestive  book.  Its  circulation 
was  limited ;  the  author's  share  of  the  profits  of  its 
sale  could  hardly  have  paid  his  tailor's  bill  for  three 
months ;  but  it  was  studied  as  a  kind  of  new  gospel  by 
a  number  of  enthusiastic  young  students  in  our  col- 
leges, and  its  influence  was  ludicrously  disproportioned 
to  its  circulation.  At  the  time  of  its  publication,  it 
was  impossible  to  meet  educated  men  and  women  in 
any  social  circle  in  Boston  without  hearing  "  Nature  " 
discussed,  —  the  elderly  scholars  assailing  and  the 
younger  defending  it ;  but  still  some  four  or  five  hun- 
dred copies  of  the  book  itself  supplied  the  public  de- 
mand. What  is  called  "  the  popular  mind  "  was  not 
then,  and  has  not  since,  been  much  affected  by  the 
volumes  in  which  Emerson  condensed  his  original 
thinking  into  the  smallest  possible  compass ;  but  dilu- 

18 


274  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

tions  of  Emerson  have  made  reputations  by  the  score. 
His  sentences  have  furnished  texts  for  sermons ;  his 
paragraphs  have  been  expanded  into  volumes  ;  and 
open  minds,  representing  every  variety  of  creed,  have 
gladly  appropriated  and  worked  out,  after  their  own 
fashion,  hints  and  impulses  derived  from  this  creed- 
less  seer  and  thinker.  His  comprehensiveness  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  those  timid  readers  who  have 
an  instinctive  repugnance  to  the  general  drift  of  his 
teaching  are  still  surprised  by  finding  something  in  him 
which  meets  their  immediate  spiritual  need  ;  and  grate- 
fully taking  that,  they  leave  the  heretical  matter  to 
such  spirits  as  find  inspiration  and  nutriment  in  it. 
It  may  be  said  that  while  fragments  of  Emerson  re- 
appear in  almost  all  phases  of  modern  thinking,  he 
has  left  behind  him  no  Emersonian. 

In  considering  Emerson  as  a  poet  writing  in  verse, 
the  objection  comes  at  once  that  his  greatest  poetic 
achievements  have  been  in  prose.  The  question  is 
asked,  Can  you  name  one  of  his  essays  in  which  the 
poetic  sentiment  and  faculty  do  not  predominate  ? 
While  his  command  of  verse  was  limited  to  a  few 
metres,  do  you  not  feel  that  when  the  fetters  of  rhyme 
are  removed  from  the  expression  of  his  thought  and 
feeling,  the  rhythm  of  some  of  his  prose  sentences  is 
more  essentially  melodious  than  the  best  of  his  short, 
flashing,  seven-syllabled  couplets  ?  Emerson  himself, 
with  a  secret  liking  for  verse  and  an  aching  desire  to 
master  its  difficulties,  once  declared  to  a  friend  that 
the  question  whether  his  power  lay  in  prose  or  verse 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  275 

was  referred  to  Carlyle  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  they 
decided  at  once  for  prose.  If  Tyndall,  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Emerson's  poetry,  had  been  selected  instead 
of  Mill,  probably  no  decision  would  have  been  ren- 
dered, for  the  judges  would  have  disagreed. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  finest,  loftiest, 
and  deepest  thoughts  of  Emerson,  being  poetic  in 
essence,  would  naturally  have  found  vent  in  some  of 
the  forms  of  poetic  expression,  for  they  announce 
spiritual  facts  and  principles,  vividly  and  warmly  per- 
ceived, which  are  commonly  not  content  with  being 
stated,  but  carry  with  them  an  impulse  and  demand 
to  be  sung  or  chanted.  If  his  piercing  insight  had 
been  accompanied  by  a  sensibility  corresponding  to  it, 
he  would  have  given  us  more  poems  and  fewer  essays ; 
but  there  was  a  certain  rigidity  in  his  nature  which 
could  be  made  to  melt  and  flow  only  when  it  was 
subjected  to  intense  heat.  Some  persons  were  in- 
clined to  confound  this  rigidity  with  frigidity  of  char- 
acter, and  called  him  cold  ;  but  the  difference  was  as 
great  as  that  between  iron  and  ice.  The  fire  in  him, 
which  would  instantly  have  dissipated  ice  into  vapor, 
made  the  iron  in  him  run  molten  and  white-hot  into 
the  mould  of  his  thought  when  he  was  stirred  by  a 
great  sentiment  or  an  inspiring  insight.  It  is  ad- 
mitted that  he  is  worthy  to  rank  among  the  great 
masters  of  expression  ;  yet  he  was  the  least  fluent  of 
educated  human  beings.  In  a  company  of  swift 
talkers  he  seemed  utterly  helpless,  until  he  fixed  upon 
the  right  word  or  phrase  to  embody  his  meaning ;  and 


276  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

then  the  word  or  phrase  was  like  a  gold  coin,  fresh 
and  bright  from  the  mint,  and  recognized  as  worth 
ten  times  as  much  as  the  small  change  of  conversa- 
tion which  had  been  circulating  so  rapidly  around  the 
table  while  he  was  mute  or  stammering.  That  won- 
derful compactness  and  condensation  of  statement 
which  surprise  and  charm  the  readers  of  his  books 
were  due  to  the  fact  that  he  exerted  every  faculty  of 
his  mind  in  the  act  of  verbal  expression.  A  prodigal 
in  respect  to  thoughts,  he  was  still  the  most  austere 
economist  in  the  use  of  words.  We  detect  this  quality 
in  his  poetry  as  in  his  prose ;  but  in  his  poetry  it  is 
found  to  be  compatible  with  the  lyric  rush,  the  un- 
withholding  self-abandonment  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  Muse,  which  commonly  characterizes  poets  who 
in  their  enthusiasm  have  lost  their  self-possession  and 
self-command. 

In  writing  of  poetry,  Emerson  admitted  that  his 
ideal  poet  never  had  an  actual  existence.  The  great- 
est poets  of  the  world  only  suggested,  here  and  there, 
the  possible  "  Olympian  bard "  who  would  "  sing  di- 
vine ideas"  on  earth  without  any  break  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  his  inspiration.  His  character  would  ever 
be  on  a  level  with  his  loftiest  thought  and  aspiration, 
and  "  so  to  be  "  would  be  the  sole  inlet  of  "  so  to 
know."  The  secret  of  the  universe  such  a  bard  would 
melodiously  reveal ;  but  actual  poets  had  only  caught 
glimpses  of  it  in  certain  happy  moments,  when  with 
"  a  shudder  of  joy  "  they  discerned  the  Real  shining 
through  the  mask  of  the  Apparent.  The  mask  was 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  277 

visible  Nature ;  the  real  was  the  soul  within  and 
behind  it. 

In  regard  to  this  all-animating  soul,  the  idealism  of 
Emerson  varied  with  his  moods.  There  are  numer- 
ous passages  in  his  works  which  with  a  simple 
change  of  terms  would  make  his  doctrine  of  the 
"  Over-Soul "  agree  with  the  orthodoxy  of  Jonathan 
Edwards.  Substitute  "Holy  Spirit"  for  "Over- 
Soul"  in  his  affirmation  of  the  communion  of  the 
divine  with  the  human  mind,  and  the  heretic  becomes 
almost  a  Calvinist.  "  When,"  Emerson  says,  "  this 
soul  breathes  through  the  intellect  of  man,  it  is  gen- 
ius; when  it  breathes  through  his  will,  it  is  virtue; 
when  it  flows  through  his  affection,  it  is  love."  The 
impotence  of  man  when  deprived  of  this  divine  in- 
spiration and  support  has  hardly  ever  been  more 
strongly  stated  than  in  some  of  Emerson's  sentences 
and  couplets.  "  The  blindness  of  the  intellect  begins 
when  it  would  be  something  of  itself.  The  weakness 
of  the  will  begins  when  the  individual  would  be  some- 
thing of  himself.  All  reform  aims,  in  some  one  par- 
ticular, to  let  the  soul  have  its  way  through  us ;  in 
other  words,  to  engage  us  to  obey."  It  is  needless  to 
multiply  quotations  in  which  Emerson  affirms  that 
what  is  done  by  man  is  as  nothing  when  compared 
with  what  is  done  through  him. 

This  seeming  conformity  to  the  Westminster  Cate- 
chism is,  however,  soon  found  to  be  only  a  part  of  a 
scheme  of  thought  which  includes  some  heresies. 
Emerson's  leading  idea  was  that  the  whole  universe 


278  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

of  thought  and  things  was  a  complex  manifestation 
of  a  Central  Unity ;  that  "  the  All "  was  a  manifesta- 
tion of  "the  One;"  that  the  universal  mind  was  in 
the  minutest  atom  of  nebulous  mist  as  in  the  brain 
of  Plato  or  Newton;  and  that  man  in  his  highest 
perceptions  of  Nature  not  only  communed  with  the 
soul  animating  the  visible  universe,  but  saw  and  felt 
that  his  individual  soul  was  identical  with  it ;  for  he 
says :  "  The  world  is  mind  precipitated,  and  the  vola- 
tile essence  is  ever  escaping  again  into  the  state  of 
free  thought.  Hence  the  virtue  and  pungency  of  the 
influence  on  the  mind  of  natural  objects,  whether  in- 
organic or  organic.  Man  imprisoned,  man  crystal- 
lized, man  vegetative,  speaks  to  man  impersonated." 
In  the  heat  of  developing  this  thought,  Emerson 
seems  at  times  to  be  a  pantheist,  representing  the 
universal  mind  as  impersonal,  though  coming  now 
and  then  to  self-consciousness  in  certain  great  indi- 
viduals elected  or  selected  to  be  its  organs,  —  these 
men,  however,  being  but  waves  in  the  great  sea  of 
existence,  elevated  above  other  men  for  the  moment 
by  some  wind  of  inspiration  sweeping  over  its  sur- 
face, but  subsiding  quickly  to  the  ordinary  level  of 
the  infinite  ocean  of  being  of  which  they  form  an 
inconsiderable  portion.  They  emerge  only  to  be  sub- 
merged. But  his  opinions  on  this  question  vary  with 
the  variations  in  his  mental  and  moral  experience  of 
life,  and  in  one  essay  he  seems  to  deny  what  he  may 
vehemently  affirm  in  the  next.  It  is  hopeless  to 
search  his  writings  for  any  consistent  theory  of  deism 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  279 

or  pantheism.  Still,  one  thing  is  certain,  that  the 
deity  he  adores,  whether  an  Infinite  Person  or  an  In- 
finite It,  is  "  immanent "  in  the  universe  of  matter 
and  mind,  and  stamps  it  with  the  impress  of  unity. 
In  the  little  poem  called  "  Blight,"  he  complains  that 
too  many  modern  scientists  have  lost  the  sense  that 
Nature  is  alive  with  spirit.  They  look  only  at  the 
surfaces  of  things;  and  in  this  respect  he  contrasts 
them  unfavorably  with  the  old  astrologers  and  al- 
chemists, who  at  least  preferred  things  to  names : 

"  For  these  were  men, 
Were  Unitarians  of  the  united  world  ; 
And  wheresoever  their  clear  eyebeams  fell 
They  caught  the  footsteps  of  the  SAME." 

And  in  "  Xenophanes  "  he  declares :  — 

"All  things 

Are  of  one  pattern  made  ;  bird,  beast,  and  flower, 
Song,  picture,  form,  space,  thought,  and  character 
Deceive  us,  seeming  to  be  many  things, 
And  are  but  one.     Beheld  far  off,  they  part 
As  God  and  devil ;  bring  them  to  the  mind, 
They  dull  its  edge  with  their  monotony. 
To  know  one  element,  explore  another, 
And  in  the  second  reappears  the  first. 
The  spacious  panorama  of  a  year 
But  multiplies  the  image  of  a  day,  — 
A  bell  of  mirrors  round  a  taper's  flame  ; 
And  universal  Nature,  through  her  vast 
And  crowded  whole,  an  infinite  paroquet, 
Repeats  one  note." 

In  "Wood-Notes"  we  see  Emerson  in  his  most 
rapturous  mood.     There  is  inspiration  in  every  line. 


280  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

In  direct  contact  with  Nature  he  throws  off  every 
shackle  of  conventionality,  and  sings  as  though  he 
were  the  first  and  only  man,  —  the  Adam,  born  with 
the  birth  of  created  things,  and  gladly  and  exultingly 
witnessing  and  welcoming  the  creation  whose  secret 
purpose  and  plan  he  discerns. 

"  All  the  forms  are  fugitive, 
But  the  substances  survive. 
Ever  fresh  the  broad  creation, 
A  divine  improvisation, 
From  the  heart  of  God  proceeds,  — 
A  single  will,  a  million  deeds. 
Once  slept  the  world  an  egg  of  stone, 
And  pulse  and  sound  and  light  was  none ; 
And  God  said  *  Throb  ! '  and  there  was  motion, 
And  the  vast  mass  became  vast  ocean. 
Onward  and  on,  the  eternal  Pan, 
Who  layeth  the  world's  incessant  plan, 
Halteth  never  in  one  shape, 
But  forever  doth  escape, 
Like  wave  or  flame,  into  new  forms 
Of  gem  and  air,  of  plants  and  worms. 

The  world  is  the  ring  of  his  spells 

And  the  play  of  his  miracles. 

As  he  giveth  to  all  to  drink, 

Thus  and  thus  they  are  and  think. 

He  giveth  little  or  giveth  much, 

To  make  them  several  or  such. 

With  one  drop  sheds  form  and  feature ; 

With  the  second  a  special  nature  ; 

The  third  adds  heat's  indulgent  spark  ; 

The  fourth  gives  light  which  eats  the  dark  ; 

Into  the  fifth  himself  he  flings, 

And  Conscious  Law  is  King  of  Kings." 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  281 

Could  a  pantheist  have  defined  the  Universal  Being 
as  "  Conscious  Law  "  ?  Has  any  believer  in  the  per- 
sonality of  God  ever  hit  upon  a  better  definition  ? 

Emerson,  in  an  essay  on  art,  declares  that  the  artist 
must  "  disindividualize  "  himself,  and  become  an  or- 
gan through  which  the  universal  mind  acts.  "  There 
is,"  he  says,  "  but  one  reason.  The  mind  that  made 
the  world  is  not  one  mind,  but  the  mind.  Every  man 
is  an  inlet  to  the  same,  and  to  all  of  the  same."  The 
delight  we  take  in  a  work  of  art  "  seems  to  arise  from 
our  recognizing  in  it  the  mind  that  formed  Nature 
again  in  active  operation.  ...  A  masterpiece  of  art 
has  in  the  mind  a  fixed  place  in  the  chain  of  being,  as 
much  as  a  plant  or  a  crystal."  In  "  The  Problem," 
the  best  known  of  all  his  poems,  this  thought  is  devel- 
oped with  wonderful  power  and  beauty.  The  founders 
of  religions,  the  great  poets  and  artists,  all  men  who 
have  done  things  which  are  universally  admitted  to 
be  great  and  admirable,  were  "  disindividualized,"  — 
the  recipients  of  an  inspiration  from  the  "  vast  soul 
that  o'er  them  planned,"  and  in  all  their  works 
"  building  better  than  they  knew."  It  is  needless  to 
quote  passages  from  this  poem,  because  so  many  thou- 
sands of  cultivated  people  know  it  by  heart.  But 
why  is  it  called  "  The  Problem  "  ?  The  answer  must 
be  sought  in  the  verses  with  which  it  begins  and 
closes.  Like  all  poets  and  philosophers  who  are 
classed  as  pantheists,  Emerson  had  a  pronounced, 
almost  a  haughty  individuality.  Throughout  his  life 
he  guarded  this  with  a  jealous  care.  He  never  could 


282  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

endure  the  thought  of  being  the  organ  of  any  fra- 
ternity, the  disciple  of  any  master,  the  representative 
of  any  organization,  the  spokesman  of  any  body  of 
reformers,  however  noble  might  be  their  objects.  His 
essays  swarm  with  criticisms  on  the  one-sideness  of 
every  philanthropic  association  of  his  time;  and  it 
may  be  said,  as  an  illustration  of  the  general  impres- 
sion regarding  the  purity,  integrity,  strength,  and 
sweetness  of  his  character,  that  he  was  the  only  man 
in  New  England  who  could  criticise  the  "  reform- 
ers "  without  becoming  the  object  of  their  invective. 
It  was  impossible  for  Emerson  to  part  with  his  own 
individuality,  even  in  celebrating  the  achievements  of 
the  inspired  saints,  bards,  and  artists  who  had  seem- 
ingly parted  with  theirs.  He  did  not  desire  to  "  dis- 
individualize "  himself,  while  intensely  appreciating 
other  individualities.  "  I  like,"  he  says,  — 

"  I  like  a  church  ;  I  like  a  cowl ; 
I  love  a  prophet  of  the  soul  ; 
And  on  my  heart  monastic  aisles 
Fall  like  sweet  strains  or  pensive  smiles ; 
Yet  not  for  all  his  faith  can  see 
Would  I  that  cowled  Churchman  be." 

Then  burst  forth  the  magnificent  lines  which  seem 
to  destroy  the  individual  in  the  act  of  exalting  him  as 
the  selected  instrument  of  a  power  higher  than  him- 
self; and  yet  the  conclusion  agrees  with  the  begin- 
ning. After  all,  it  must  still,  he  thinks,  be  said  that 
there  is  something  which  distinguishes  the  person 
who  receives  the  celestial  impulse  and  aid  from  all 
other  persons:  — 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  283 

"  I  know  what  say  the  fathers  wise,  — 
The  book  itself  before  me  lies  : 
Old  Chrysostom,  best  Augustine, 
And  he  who  blent  both  in  his  line, 
The  younger  Golden  Lips  or  mines, 
Taylor,  the  Shakspeare  of  divines. 
His  words  are  music  to  my  ear, 
I  see  his  cowled  portrait  dear  ; 
And  yet  for  all  his  faith  could  see, 
I  would  not  the  good  bishop  be." 

All  this  practically  means :  "  I  would  not  be  other- 
wise than  what  I  am,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson." 

Indeed,  however  much  Emerson  may  vary  in  his 
statements,  —  at  one  time  placing  the  emphasis  on 
the  universal  mind,  and  at  another  on  the  individual 
mind,  —  the  general  drift  of  his  writings  goes  to  show 
that  the  purpose  of  the  spirit  which  underlies  "  Na- 
ture" is  to  build  up  intrepid  manhood  in  human 
nature.  In  "  Monadnoc  "  the  poet  professes  to  be  at 
first  disgusted  with  the  clowns  and  churls  who  have 
built  their  habitations  on  the  slopes  of  the  mountain  ; 
but  he  finds  consolation  in  the  thought  that  they  are 
the  progenitors  of  a  finer  race  to  come :  — 

"  The  World-soul  knows  his  own  affair, 
Forelooking  when  he  would  prepare, 
For  the  next  ages,  men  of  mould 
Well  embodied,  well  ensouled  ; 
He  cools  the  present's  fiery  glow, 
Sets  the  life-pulse  strong  but  slow  : 
Bitter  winds  and  fasts  austere 
His  quarantines  and  grottos,  where 
He  slowly  cures  decrepit  flesh, 
And  brings  it  infantile  and  fresh. 


284  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

These  exercises  are  the  toys 

And  games  to  breathe  his  stalwart  boys  : 

They  bide  their  time,  and  well  can  prove, 

If  need  were,  their  line  from  Jove  ; 

Of  the  same  stuff,  and  so  allayed, 

As  that  whereof  the  sun  is  made, 

And  of  the  fibre,  quick  and  strong, 

Whose  throbs  are  love,  whose  thrills  are  song." 

But  what  is  the  mental  mood  in  which  the  human 
mind,  lifted  above  its  ordinary  limitations,  sees  into 
the  heart  of  Nature  ?  Emerson  affirms  it  to  be  the 
mood  of  ecstasy,  —  a  kind  of  celestial  intoxication, 
which,  while  it  may  blind  the  eye  of  the  soul  to  the 
clear  perception  of  things  as  they  appear,  sharpens 
and  brightens  its  perception  of  things  as  they  really 
are.  In  "  Bacchus "  we  have  both  a  statement 
and  example  of  this  inspiration.  "  Bring  me,"  he 
exclaims,  — 

"  Bring  me  wine,  but  wine  which  never  grew 
In  the  belly  of  the  grape, 

Or  grew  on  vine  whose  tap-roots,  reaching  through 
Under  the  Andes  to  the  Cape, 
Suffered  no  savor  of  the  earth  to  'scape. 

We  buy  ashes  for  bread ; 

We  buy  diluted  wine  ; 

Give  me  of  the  true, 

Whose  ample  leaves  and  tendrils  curled 

Among  the  silver  hills  of  heaven 

Draw  everlasting  dew ; 

Wine  of  wine, 

Blood  of  the  world, 

Form  of  forms,  and  mould  of  statures, 

That  I  intoxicated, 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  285 

And  by  the  draught  assimilated, 

May  float  at  pleasure  through  all  natures  ; 

The  bird  language  rightly  spell, 

And  that  which  roses  say  so  well: 

"  Wine  that  is  shed 
Like  the  torrents  of  the  sun 
Up  the  horizon  walls, 
Or  like  the  Atlantic  streams  which  run 
When  the  South  Sea  calls: 

"  Water  and  bread, 
Food  which  needs  no  transmuting, 
Rainbow-flowering,  wisdom-fruiting, 
Wine  which  is  already  man, 
Food  which  teach  and  reason  can: 

"  Wine  which  Music  is,  — 
Music  and  wine  are  one,  — 
That  I,  drinking  this, 
Shall  hear  far  Chaos  talk  with  me ; 
Kings  unborn  shall  walk  with  me  ; 
And  the  poor  grass  shall  plot  and  plan 
What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man. 
Quickened  so,  will  I  unlock 
Every 'crypt  of  every  rock. 

"  I  thank  the  joyful  juice 
For  all  I  know  ; 
Winds  of  remembering 
Of  the  ancient  being  blow, 
And  seeming-solid  walls  of  use 
Open  and  flow. 

"  Pour,  Bacchus  !  the  remembering  wine  ; 
Retrieve  the  loss  of  me  and  mine  ! 
Vine  for  vine  be  antidote, 
And  the  grape  requite  the  lote  ! 
Haste  to  cure  the  old  despair,  — 


286  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

Reason  in  Nature's  lotus  drenched, 

The  memory  of  ages  quenched  ; 

Give  them  again  to  shine  ; 

Let  wine  repair  what  this  undid  ; 

And  where  the  infection  slid, 

A  dazzling  memory  revive ; 

Refresh  the  faded  tints, 

Recut  the  aged  prints, 

And  write  my  old  adventures  with  the  pen 

Which  on  the  first  day  drew, 

Upon  the  tablets  blue, 

The  dancing  Pleiads  and  eternal  men." 

In  this  poem,  published  long  before  the  "  Origin  of 
Species  "  appeared,  we  have  a  theory  of  development 
and  evolution  more  far-reaching  than  Darwin's ;  and 
Emerson  anticipates  even  the  doctrine  of  natural 
selection  in  some  of  his  other  poems.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, in  "  The  World-Soul,"  he  says  that  Destiny  — 

"  The  patient  Daemon  sits, 
With  roses  and  a  shroud  ; 
He  has  his  way  and  deals  his  gifts,  — 
But  ours  are  not  allowed. 

He  serveth  the  servant, 

The  brave  he  loves  amain  ; 

He  kills  the  cripple  and  the  sick, 

And  straight  begins  again. 

For  gods  delight  in  gods, 

And  thrust  the  weak  aside  ; 

To  him  who  scorns  their  charities, 

Their  arms  fly  open  wide." 

And  again,  in  the  "  Ode  to  W.  H.  Channing,"  we 
have  this  declaration:  — 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  28T 

"  The  over-god 
Who  marries  Right  to  Might, 
Who  peoples,  unpeoples, — 
He  who  exterminates 
Races  by  stronger  races, 
Black  by  white  faces,  — 
Knows  how  to  bring  honey 
Out  of  the  lion  ; 
Grafts  gentlest  scion 
On  pirate  and  Turk." 

The  general  idea  of  the  "survival  of  the  fittest" 
reappears  often  in  Emerson's  writings.  To  benevo- 
lent men  it  seems  the  scientific  form  of  the  theologi- 
cal doctrine  of  "  election ; "  but  Emerson  considered 
it  in  connection  with  his  theory  that  what  we  call  evil 
is  a  roundabout  way  of  producing  good.  The  spiritual 
laws  which  regulate  the  universe  cannot  be  overturned 
by  powerful  individuals,  for  it  is  notorious  that  what 
they  desire  to  do  in  violation  of  these  outlying  laws 
meets  with  such  resistance  that  the  effect  produced  is 
very  different  from  the  effect  intended.  Evil  is  good 
in  the  making,  —  not  a  positive  substance,  but  a  mere 
imperfection  of  good.  "  The  sharpest  evils  are  bent 
into  that  periodicity  which  makes  the  errors  of  planets 
and  the  fevers  and  distempers  of  men  self-limiting. 
.  .  .  Good  is  a  good  doctor,  but  Bad  is  sometimes  a 
better.  ...  If  one  shall  read  the  future  of  the  race 
hinted  in  the  organic  effort  of  Nature  to  mount  and 
meliorate,  and  the  corresponding  impulse  to  the  Better 
in  the  human  being,  we  shall  dare  affirm  that  there 
is  nothing  he  will  not  overcome  and  convert,  until  at 
last  culture  shall  absorb  the  chaos  and  gehenna.  He 


288  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

will  convert  the  Furies  into  Muses,  and  the  hells  into 
benefit." 

It  is  in  view  of  such  sentences  as  these  that  we  must 
consider  a  few  of  Emerson's  poems  in  which  his  theory 
of  evil  is  somewhat  too  bluntly  expressed.  Such  is 
"  Uriel,"  which  has  troubled  many  of  Emerson's  admir- 
ers who  were  attracted  to  him  because  of  the  emphasis 
he  laid  on  the  moral  sentiment.  It  was  the  very  inten- 
sity of  his  conception  of  the  universal  dominion  of  this 
sentiment  which  made  him  deride  all  efforts  to  resist  it. 

Leaving  out  of  view,  however,  Emerson's  poetic 
philosophy  of  Nature  and  man,  and  the  poems  which 
specially  represent  it,  he  is  still  the  author  of  some 
short  pieces  which  are  at  once  admirable  and  popular. 
Such  are  "Each  and  All,"  "The  Rhodora,"  "The 
Snow-storm,"  "  The  Humble-bee,"  and  "  Forerunners," 
each  of  which  justifies  the  dictum  of  their  author, 
that  "  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being."  In  "  Fore- 
runners "  the  poet  tells  us  of  his  joyous  and  resolute 
pursuit  of  unattainable  beauty.  The  pursuit  of  his 
"  happy  guides  "  results  in  disappointment :  — 

"  For  no  speed  of  mine  avails 
To  hunt  upon  their  shining  trails  ; " 

yet,  though  never  overtaken,  he  feels  they  are  never  far 

distant :  — 

"  Their  near  camp  my  spirit  knows 
By  signs  gracious  as  rainbows. 
I  thenceforward,  and  long  after, 
Listen  for  their  harp-like  laughter, 
And  carry  in  my  heart  for  days 
Peace  that  hallows  rudest  ways." 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  289 

It  is  a  marked  distinction  of  this  little  poem, — 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  in  the  language,  —  that  it 
testifies  to  the  possibility  of  finding  a  certain  content 
in  following  continually  an  ideal  never  reached.  Most 
poets  eloquently  celebrate  their  discontent  when  they 
learn  that  the  earth  they  inhabit  is  different  from 
the  heaven  they  conceive.  Byron  is  specially  enraged 
at  what  he  considers  this  injustice  of  Providence. 

Emerson's  philosophy  in  this  matter  was  not  due 
to  a  dull  perception  of  beauty  in  any  of  its  forms. 
No  poet  was  more  keenly  susceptible  to  it ;  no  poet 
ever  shrank  from  deformity  with  such  an  instinctive 
repulsion ;  and  moral  ugliness  specially  irritated 
him,  not  only  because  it  was  wicked,  but  because  it 
was  "  disagreeable."  Goethe's  masterpiece,  "  Faust," 
"  abounded,"  he  once  wrote,  "  in  the  disagreeable. 
The  vice  is  prurient,  learned,  Parisian.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  Jove,  Priapus  may  be  allowed  as  an  offset,  but 
here  he  is  an  equal  hero.  The  book  is  undoubtedly 
written  by  a  master,  and  stands  unhappily  related  to 
the  whole  modern  world;  but  it  is  a  very  disagree- 
able chapter  of  literature,  and  accuses  the  author  as 
well  as  the  times.  Shakspeare  could,  no  doubt,  have 
been  disagreeable  had  he  had  less  genius,  and  if  ugli- 
ness had  attracted  him.  In  short,  our  English  nature 
and  genius  have  made  us  the  worst  critics  of  Goethe." 

Indeed,  Emerson  felt  in  this  matter  like  his  own 
humble-bee,  in  his  avoidance  of  u  aught  unsavory  or 
unclean."  And  his  "  Ode  to  Beauty  "  indicates  that 

the  sense  of  beauty  penetrated  to  the  inmost  centre 

19 


290  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

of  his  being,  and  was  an  indissoluble  element  in  his 
character :  — 

"  Who  gave  thee,  0  Beauty, 

The  keys  of  this  breast,  — 
Too  credulous  lover 

Of  blest  and  unblest,  — 
Say,  when  in  lapsed  ages 
Thee  knew  I  of  old  1 
Or  what  was  the  service 
For  which  I  was  sold  1 
I  found  me  thy  thrall 
By  magical  drawings, 
Sweet  tyrant  of  all ! 

Lavish,  lavish  promiser, 
Nigh  persuading  gods  to  err  ! 
Guest  of  million  painted  forms, 
Which  in  turn  thy  glory  warms ! 
The  frailest  leaf,  the  mossy  bark, 
The  acorn's  cup,  the  rain-drop's  arc, 
The  swinging  spider's  silver  line, 
The  ruby  of  the  drop  of  wine, 
The  shining  pebble  of  the  pond, 
Thou  inscribest  with  a  bond, 
In  thy  momentary  play, 
Would  bankrupt  nature  to  repay. 

Thee,  gliding  through  the  sea  of  form, 
Like  the  lightning  through  the  storm, 
Somewhat  not  to  be  possessed, 
Somewhat  not  to  be  caressed, 
No  feet  so  fleet  could  ever  find,   '! 
No  perfect  form  could  ever  bind. 

The  leafy  dell,  the  city  mart, 
Equal  trophies  of  thine  art ; 
E'en  the  flowing  azure  air 
Thou  hast  touched  for  my  despair ; 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  291 

And  if  I  languish  into  dreams, 
Again  I  meet  the  ardent  beams. 
Queen  of  things  !  I  dare  not  die 
In  Being's  deeps  past  ear  and  eye  ; 
Lest  there  I  find  the  same  deceiver, 
And  be  the  sport  of  Fate  forever. 
Dread  Power,  but  dear !  if  God  thou  be, 
Unmake  me  quite,  or  give  thyself  to  me !  " 

Emerson  once,  in  speaking  to  a  friend,  remarked 
that  he  could  write  in  prose  by  spurring  his  faculties 
into  action ;  but  he  could  write  in  verse  only  in  cer- 
tain happy  moments  of  inspiration,  for  which  he  had 
to  wait.  In  our  limited  space  it  is  impossible  to 
do  more  than  to  quote  a  few  verses  in  which  this 
inspiration  is  recorded.  Here  are  specimens  from 
"  Wood-Notes  : "  — 

"  For  Nature  beats  in  perfect  tune, 
And  rounds  with  rhyme  her  every  rune, 
Whether  she  work  in  land  or  sea, 
Or  hide  underground  her  alchemy. 
Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 
Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 
And  the  ripples  in  rhyme  the  oar  forsake. 

Who  liveth  by  the  ragged  pine 
Foundeth  a  heroic  line  ; 
Who  liveth  in  a  palace  hall 
Waneth  fast  and  spendeth  all. 

The  rough  and  bearded  forester 
Is  better  than  the  lord ; 
God  fills  the  scrip  and  canister, 
Sin  piles  the  loaded  board. 


292  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

Go  where  he  will,  the  wise  man  is  at  home, 
His  hearth  the  earth,  —  his  hall  the  azure  dome. 

He  saw  beneath  dim  aisles,  in  odorous  beds, 

The  slight  Linnsea  hang  its  twin-born  heads, 

And  blessed  the  monument  of  the  man  of  flowers, 

Which  breathes  his  sweet  fame  through  the  northern  bowers. 

Lover  of  all  things  alive, 
Wonderer  at  all  he  meets, 
Wonderer  chiefly  at  himself,  — 
Who  can  tell  him  what  he  is  ? 
Or  how  meet  in  human  elf 
Coming  and  past  eternities  ? " 

From  his  poems  under  the  title  of  "  Initial,  Dae- 
monic, and  Celestial  Love,"  lines  without  number 
might  be  cited  in  proof  that  he  had  studied  this 
passion  scientifically.  His  report  on  its  various  mani- 
festations has  the  exactness  of  the  scientist  combined 
with  the  glow  of  the  poet.  His  Cupid  is  represented 
as  especially  dangerous  through  his  eyes :  — 

"  In  the  pit  of  his  eye 's  a  spark 
Would  bring  back  day  if  it  were  dark. 

He  lives  in  his  eyes  ; 
There  doth  digest,  and  work  and  spin, 
And  buy  and  sell,  and  lose  and  win  ; 
He  rolls  them  with  delighted  motion, 
Joy-tides  swell  their  mimic  ocean. 
Yet  holds  he  them  with  taughtest  rein, 
That  they  may  seize  and  entertain 
The  glance  that  to  their  glance  opposes, 
Like  fiery  honey  sucked  from  roses. 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  293 

Deep,  deep  are  loving  eyes, 
Flowed  with  naphtha  fiery  sweet ; 
And  the  point  is  paradise 
Where  their  glances  meet." 

Emerson  has  two  poems,"  Dirge"  and "  Threnody," 
which  stand  for  examples  of  what  may  be  called  intel- 
lectualized  pathos.  The  grief  does  not  burst  forth  with 
passionate  directness  from  the  heart,  but  is  passed 
through  the  intellect  and  imagination  before  it  is 
allowed  expression  in  words.  Tennyson's  "  In  Me- 
moriam  "  is  the  most  striking  illustration  in  English 
literature  of  this  process  of  restraining  emotion  in 
order  to  make  its  finer  effects  on  character  perma- 
nent. The  poet  lays  particular  emphasis  on  the  office 
of  imagination  in  softening  and  consecrating  the  grief 
which  it  at  the  same  time  makes  enduring :  — 

"  Likewise  the  imaginative  woe, 
That  loved  to  handle  spiritual  strife, 
Diffused  the  shock  through  all  my  life, 
But  in  the  present  broke  the  blow." 

In  Emerson's  "  Dirge  "  this  spiritualized  sadness  "is 
exquisitely  expressed.  His  dead  brothers  are  still 
kept  sacredly  near  to  his  soul,  for  they  are  lodged  in 
the  memory  of  his  realizing  imagination,  and  no  lapse 
of  years  can  make  the  sense  of  his  loss  of  "  the  strong, 
star-bright  companions  "  of  his  childhood  and  youth 
a  calamity  to  fade  into  forgetfulness.  In  essential 
pathos,  what  can  exceed  the  sorrow  expressed  in  this 
stanza  of  the  poem :  — 


294  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

"  I  touch  this  flower  of  silken  leaf, 

Which  once  our  childhood  knew, 
Its  soft  leaves  wound  me  with  a  grief 
Whose  balsam  never  grew." 

The  "  Threnody  "  on  the  loss  of  his  child  — 

"  The  hyacinthine  hoy,  for  whom 
Morn  well  might  break  and  April  bloom; 
The  gracious  boy,  who  did  adorn 
The  world  whereinto  he  was  born  "  — 

has  more  of  the  character  of  an  outburst  of  the  heart 
under  the  agonizing  feeling  of  an  irreparable  calamity, 
but  its  pathos  is  still  of  the  kind  which  lies  "  too  deep 
for  tears."  Indeed,  the  solid  manhood  of  the  father, 
rooted  in  ideas,  and  strong  to  resist  the  "  blasphemy 
of  grief,"  was  never  better  exemplified  than  in  this 
tender  and  beautiful  "  Threnody."  The  father  has 
now  followed  the  child.  Is  it  irreverent  to  suggest 
that  the  anticipation  in  the  line  which  concludes  the 
poem  he  has  now  verified,  — 

"  Lost  in  God,  in  Godhead  found." 

There  are  stanzas  in  Emerson's  poems  which  read 
like  oracles.  Their  truth  to  our  moral  being  is  so 
close  that  we  should  hardly  be  surprised  if  they  were 
prefaced  with  a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord."  And,  indeed, 
Emerson  announces  them  with  the  confident  tone  of 
the  seer  and  the  prophet.  They  rank  with  the  lof- 
tiest utterances  which  have  ever  proceeded  from  the 
awakened  heart  and  conscience  and  intellect  of  man. 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  295 

The  Concord  Fourth  of  July  "Ode"  (1857),  which 
opens  with  the  magnificent  imagination,  — 

"  Oh,  tenderly  the  haughty  Day 
Fills  his  blue  urn  with  fire," 

closes  with  the  inspiring  declaration  that 

"  He  that  worketh  high  and  wise, 

Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man." 

The  short  poem  called  "Freedom"  ends  with  these 
soul-animating  lines  :  — 

"  Freedom's  secret  wilt  thou  know  ? 
Counsel  not  with  flesh  and  blood  ; 
Loiter  not  for  cloak  or  food  ; 
Right  thou  feelest,  rush  to  do." 

The  "  Boston  Hymn  "  (1863),  which  begins  with  "  the 
Word  of  the  Lord,"  closes  with  an  impressive  verse 
in  which  is  condensed  the  whole  divine  law  of  retri- 
bution. What  poet  before  Emerson  ever  gave  eyes  to 
the  thunderbolt  ? 

«  My  will  fulfilled  shall  be, 
For,  in  daylight  as  in  dark, 
My  thunderbolt  has  eyes  to  see 
His  way  home  to  the  mark." 

In  the  "  Voluntaries,"  which  are  infused  throughout 
with  the  heroic  feelings  roused  by  the  Civil  War, 
there  is  one  quatrain  that  stands  out  from  the  rest 
with  startling  distinctness  and  power :  — 


296  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

"  So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 
So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 
The  youth  replies,  /  can." 

But  perhaps  the  noblest  of  these  affirmations  of  the 
absolute  obligation  of  men  to  follow  their  consciences, 
rather  than  what  appears  to  be  their  interests,  is  con- 
tained in  four  lines  with  the  heading  of  "  Sacrifice." 
This  quatrain  is  a  poem  in  itself,  —  an  epic  poem  : 

"  Though  love  repine,  and  reason  chafe, 
There  comes  a  voice  without  reply,  — 
'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

The  reason  that  such  grand  utterances  as  these 
tlirill  us  with  unwonted  emotion  is  to  be  found  in  our 
instinctive  belief  that  the  poet's  character  was  on  a 
level  with  his  lofty  thinking.  He  affirmed  the  su- 
premacy of  spiritual  laws  because  he  spoke  from  a 
height  of  spiritual  experience  to  which  he  had  mounted 
by  the  steps  of  spiritual  growth.  In  reading  him  we 
feel  that  we  are  in  communion  with  an  original  per- 
son as  well  as  with  an  original  poet,  —  one  whose 
character  is  as  brave  as  it  is  sweet,  as  strong  as  it  is 
beautiful,  as  firm  and  resolute  in  will  as  it  is  keen 
and  delicate  in  insight,  —  one  who  has  earned  the 
right  authoritatively  to  announce,  without  argument, 
great  spiritual  facts  and  principles,  because  his  soul 
has  come  into  direct  contact  with  them.  As  a  poet 
he  often  takes  strange  liberties  with  the  established 
laws  of  rhyme  and  rhythm;  even  his  images  are 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET.  297 

occasionally  enigmas ;  but  he  still  contrives  to  pour 
through  his  verse  a  flood  and  rush  of  inspiration  not 
often  perceptible  in  the  axiomatic  sentences  of  his 
most  splendid  prose.  In  his  verse  he  gives  free,  joy- 
ous, exulting  expression  to  all  the  audacities  of  his 
thinking  and  feeling ;  and  perhaps  this  inadequate 
attempt  to  set  forth  his  merits  as  a  poet  may  be  ap- 
propriately closed  by  citing,  from  the  poem  which 
bears  the  title  of  "  Merlin,"  his  own  conception  of 
what  a  poet  should  be  and  should  do  :  - 

"  Thy  trivial  harp  will  never  please 

Or  fill  my  craving  ear  ; 
Its  chords  should  ring  as  blows  the  breeze, 

Free,  peremptory,  clear. 
No  jingling  serenader's  art, 

Nor  tinkle  of  piano  strings, 
Can  make  the  wild  blood  start 

In  its  mystic  springs. 
The  kingly  bard 

Must  smite  the  chords  rudely  and  hard, 
As  with  hammer  or  with  mace  ; 
That  they  may  render  back 
Artful  thunder,  which  conveys 
Secrets  of  the  solar  track, 
Sparks  of  the  supersolar  blaze. 
Merlin's  blows  are  strokes  of  fate, 
Chiming  with  the  forest  tone, 
When  boughs  buffet  boughs  in  the  wood ; 
Chiming  with  the  gasp  and  moan 
Of  the  ice-imprisoned  flood  ; 
With  the  pulse  of  manly  hearts, 
With  the  voice  of  orators, 
With  the  din  of  city  arts, 
With  the  cannonade  of  wars, 
With  the  marches  of  the  brave, 
And  prayers  of  might  from  martyr's  cave. 


298  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 

"Great  is  the  art, 
Great  be  the  manners,  of  the  bard. 
He  shall  not  his  brain  encumber 
With  the  coil  of  rhythm  and  number  ; 
But  leaving  rule  and  pale  forethought, 
He  shall  aye  climb 
For  his  rhyme. 

*  Pass  in,  pass  in,'  the  angels  say, 

*  In  to  the  upper  doors, 

Nor  count  compartments  of  the  floors, 

But  mount  to  Paradise 

By  the  stairway  of  surprise.' " 


THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF  THOMAS 
STARR  KING. 

THE  success  of  the  two  volumes  —  one  of  Sermons, 
the  other  of  Lectures  —  of  Thomas  Starr  King  indi- 
cates that  he  still  lives,  though  the  brave,  bright, 
cordial,  and  ardent  spirit  has  gone  to  another  sphere 
of  existence.  Wherever  he  exists,  we  may  be  sure 
that  he  is  at  work,  though  at  work  under  the  condi- 
tions of  that  celestial  activity  which  is  perfectly  com- 
patible with  a  true  Christian's  idea  of  rest  and  repose, 
—  the  rest  which  is  simply  a  more  genial  exercise  of 
powers  which  were  resolutely  employed  on  earth  in 
the  service  of  God  ;  and  the  repose  which  he  more 
or  less  felt,  while  dwelling  here,  in  the  conception  of 
those  universal  sentiments  and  ideas  which  have  the 
magical  effect  both  to  inspire  and  calm.  Of  few  men 
could  it  be  said  with  more  truth  than  of  him :  "  His 
body  is  at  rest,  his  soul  in  heaven." 

The  press  of  the  country  has  been  singularly  unani- 
mous in  recognizing  the  merits  of  King  as  a  man  and 
as  a  preacher.  It  however  seems  to  me  that  a  suffi- 
cient stress  has  not  been  laid  on  King's  perfect  faith 
that  Life  —  spiritual  life  —  is  essentially  continuous, 
and  that  the  tomb  is  merely  the  robing-room  whence 


300  THE  CHARACTER  AND   GENIUS  OP 

the  individual  spirit  enters  into  its  new  life,  under  new 
conditions.  This  is  the  real  question  of  the  time,  Do 
we  live  after  we  die  ?  King  answers  it  with  an  em- 
phatic and  cheerful  "  Yes,"  as  if  there  could  be  no 
doubt  of  it.  Every  sermon  in  his  volume  is  a  confi- 
dent affirmation  of  this  inherent,  though  sometimes 
partially  obscured,  belief  of  humanity.  He  almost 
takes  it  for  granted  in  the  sermons  in  which  he  in- 
sists on  the  necessary  continuity  of  life.  He  leans 
over  the  grave  in  which  a  husband  or  a  wife,  a 
father  or  a  mother,  a  son  or  a  daughter,  is  laid ;  and 
he  says :  "  Be  of  good  cheer !  the  person  you  mourn 
and  whom  you  loved  is  not  in  this  coffin,  but  has  as- 
cended. Our  earthly  sorrow  should  be  mingled  with 
a  sacred  joy.  Individual  life  is  indestructible  ;  there 
is  no  grave  for  that.  Let  us  cry  '  Glory  to  God ! '  in 
presence  of  this  seeming  eclipse  of  life,  —  only  an 
eclipse,  not  an  extinction." 

This  feeling  of  King  was  both  a  faith  and  an  expe- 
rience. Everybody  who  knew  him  must  have  been 
impressed  with  the  calm  way  in  which  he  spoke  to 
his  friends  of  this  fundamental  fact  in  his  conception 
of  life,  —  namely,  its  everlastingness.  "  I  am  here  in 
Boston  to-day;  to-morrow  I  am  in  San  Francisco. 
Whether  I  write  to  you  or  not,  I  am  still  in  spiritual 
relations  with  you.  It  is  foolish  to  suppose  that  if  I 
happen  to  die  in  San  Francisco,  I  shall  be  less  near 
to  my  friends  than  if  I  wrote  to  them  by  every  post. 
What  I  am  in  myself  is  just  as  real  when  I  am  laid 
in  what  is  called  the  grave  as  in  my  most  familiar 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  301 

intercourse  with  you.  For  God's  sake,  do  not  be 
deceived  by  this  fiction  of  physical  death,  as  if  that 
could  separate  me  from  you ! "  King's  reliance  on 
the  immortality  of  the  individual  mind  was  stronger 
than  any  capitalist  can  possibly  feel  in  his  solidest  in- 
vestments ;  and  he  always  spoke  of  it  with  the  con- 
fidence that  other  men  speak  of  their  personal  estate. 
His  personal  estate  was  invested  in  Thomas  Stan- 
King  ;  and  he  fastened  upon  it  as  an  eternal  posses- 
sion, —  as  something  which  was  to  endure  forever. 

It  was  this  faith  that  gave  him  such  power  in  meet- 
ing the  ghastliest  facts  of  our  earthly  life.  There 
was  no  calamity  which  he  could  not  confront,  both 
by  reason  and  spiritual  insight,  with  the  comforting 
assurance,  "  Be  of  good  cheer ! "  Life  bounded  so 
abundantly,  so  impetuously,  so  joyously,  in  all  the 
veins  of  his  spiritual  frame,  that  he  was  perhaps  not 
sufficiently  respectful  to  "  Death,  the  Skeleton."  The 
dread  phantom  excited  in  him  neither  horror  nor 
repugnance.  He  was  ready  to  welcome  it,  in  the 
natural  course  of  things,  as  something  to  be  met  and 
overcome ;  but  he  stoutly  insisted  that  it  was  but  a 
phantom,  —  an  appearance,  —  with  no  reality  in  it  as 
looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  infinite  life. 
There  is,  he  seemed  to  say, — 

"  There  is  no  speculation  in  those  eyes 
Which  thou  dost  glare  with ! " 

Now,  I  have  read  a  vast  quantity  of  sermons  by 
men  of  deeply  religious  minds ;  but  it  is  only  in  the 


302  THE  CHARACTER  AND   GENIUS  OF 

sermons  of  men  of  religious  genius  that  I  have  no- 
ticed anything  which  equalled  King's  cheerful  and 
cheering  trust  in  the  continuousness  of  life,  after 
death  has  seemingly  extinguished  it.  His  sermons, 
it  seems  to  me,  entitle  him  to  rank  with  men  of  re- 
ligious genius  ;  for  they  really  assist  human  beings 
to  meet  the  most  awful  of  human  experiences,  by 
communicating  to  them  the  consolation,  the  hope,  the 
cheer  which  they  need  in  the  hour  of  their  own  de- 
parture, or — what  is  practically  of  more  importance — 
in  the  departure  of  those  they  love.  There  are  five 
or  six  sermons  in  the  volume,  relating  to  death  in 
every  form  in  which  it  can  afflict,  affright,  or  up- 
lift the  soul,  which  seem  to  me  penetrated  with  the 
essential,  the  inmost  spirit  of  Christianity.  On  his 
own  death-bed  King  murmured,  "  I  see  a  great  future 
before  me ! "  The  spirit  that  uttered  those  words  is 
all  alive  in  the  sermons,  preached  when  he  was  in 
vigorous  health,  and  when  "  a  great  future  "  was  be- 
fore him  in  doing  the  work  of  God  on  earth. 

The  sermons  also  are  distinguished  by  the  admi- 
rable way  in  which  the  precepts  which  regulate  the 
proper  conduct  of  life  are  strenuously  enforced.  Pre- 
cepts !  —  I  should  rather  say  Forces.  There  is  not  a 
moral  principle  stated  in  the  whole  volume  which  is 
not  thoroughly  vitalized,  which  is  not  made  lovable, 
which  is  not  converted  from  a  mere  recommendation 
to  do  well  into  an  impulse  to  do  well.  The  book  not 
only  communicates  moral  knowledge  but  moral  life. 
It  is  full,  not  only  of  spiritual  nourishment  and  re- 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  303 

freshment,  but  of  spiritual  stimulant  and  force ;  and 
while  it  clearly  points  out  the  way  to  salvation,  and 
gives  impetus  to  the  pilgrim  who  has  bravely  ven- 
tured on  the  right  path,  it  invigorates  him,  as  he  halts 
exhausted  on  his  journey,  with  spiritual  food. 

A  book  with  these  precious  virtues  in  it  would 
hardly  need,  it  would  seem,  any  abatement  in  the  cor- 
dial praise  it  should  receive.  That  abatement,  how- 
ever, has  been  insinuated  by  some  ministers  of  the 
Unitarian  denomination,  —  a  denomination  to  which 
Mr.  King  belonged,  and  for  which  he  labored  with  a 
zeal  exceeding  theirs.  He  is  dead,  —  dead  by  over- 
exertion  in  the  cause  of  what  is  called  Liberal  Chris- 
tianity, and  by  unwithholding  devotion  to  the  cause 
of  the  country  in  its  deadly  grapple  with  a  rebellion 
based,  in  his  own  words,  "  on  perjury,  treason,  and 
insult  to  toil;"  but  his  superciliously  "liberal"  critics 
are  alive,  and  yawning  over  what  they  call  Christian 
commonplaces,  and  desiring  the  sting  of  some  un- 
Christian  paradoxes  to  rouse  them  from  their  state  of 
theological  boredom,  they  complacently  suggest  that 
though  King  was  a  good,  bright,  generous  fellow,  full 
of  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of  man,  and  though 
he  sacrificed  his  life  in  his  self-abandonment  to  both 
of  these  requisites  of  the  Christian  martyr,  he  still  is 
not  up  to  the  advanced  theological  thought  of  the  age. 
They  praise  his  virtues  as  a  man,  while  insulting  him 
as  a  thinker  and  theologian. 

Now,  everybody  who  knew  King  is  aware  how  thor- 
oughly he  studied  the  works  of  the  great  German 


304  THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF 

rationalists,  and  how  thoroughly  he  placed  himself  on 
a  level  with  the  most  advanced  preachers  of  the 
Unitarian  faith,  in  discarding  everything  he  thought 
false  in  the  accredited  opinions  of  a  large  majority 
of  the  members  of  the  denomination  to  which  he  be- 
longed. But  his  intellectual  audacity  was  modified 
by  an  admirable  moral  discretion;  and  he  did  not 
think  it  a  mark  of  a  progressive  mind  to  adopt  a 
sceptical  speculation,  merely  because  it  shocked  a 
popular  belief.  He  believed  in  the  Unitarian  faith, 
—  faith  in  God,  faith  in  man,  faith  in  the  possibility 
of  a  communion  of  the  Divine  with  the  human  soul ; 
and  while  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  facts  and 
reasonings  of  the  radical  Unitarians,  while  he  never 
hesitated  to  declare  that  the  accepted  interpretation 
of  many  texts  of  Scripture  falsified  their  spirit,  while 
he  discarded  every  theory  on  which  the  doctrine  of  a 
plenary  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  was  founded,  he 
still  was  firm  in  the  faith  that  God  was  present  in  our 
Christian  Bible  in  a  sense  widely  different  from  that 
in  which  He  was  supposed  to  have  inspired  the  Yedas 
and  the  Koran,  —  in  a  sense  widely  different  from  the 
spirit  which  inspired  the  "  Divine  Comedy  "  of  Dante 
and  the  "  Paradise  Lost  "of  Milton.  But  his  essential 
difference  with  the  vigorous  thinkers  and  scholars  — 
who,  after  protesting  themselves  out  of  Orthodoxy 
into  Unitarianism,  have  protested  themselves  out  of 
Unitarianism  into  Naturalism  —  was  his  denial  of  the 
idea  that  God  retreats  as  science  advances,  that  the 
limitations  of  the  human  mind  are  such  as  to  make 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  305 

the  knowledge  of  the  Infinite  impossible.  From  his 
own  spiritual  experience,  as  well  as  from  his  study  of 
the  phenomena  recorded  in  the  lives  of  religious 
thinkers,  saints,  and  martyrs, — that  is,  of  men  of 
religious  genius,  —  he  believed  that  God  might  be 
intimately  near  to  the  human  soul,  while  infinitely 
distant  from  the  human  understanding.  Communion 
with  the  Divine  Mind  he  considered  to  be  the  inmost 
essence  of  religion ;  and  spiritual  help  from  above, 
derived  from  this  communion,  he  deemed  the  solid 
prop  both  of  religion  and  morality.  He  would  have 
cast  off  the  preacher's  gown  in  disgust,  and  gone  into 
some  other  profession,  had  he  not  been  vitally  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  these  two  propositions  ;  and  his 
conviction  of  their  truth  naturally  allied  him  to  all 
men  of  religious  perception  and  religious  genius,  no 
matter  what  might  be  the  church  or  denomination  to 
which  they  nominally  belonged.  He  was,  in  the  in- 
tensest  meaning  of  the  phrase,  an  evangelical  "  lib- 
eral" Christian. 

The  Unitarian  denomination  is  one  for  which  I 
have  a  great  respect,  not  merely  because  I  am  proud 
to  belong  to  it,  but  because  it  has  produced  some  ad- 
mirable specimens  of  human  character.  But  it  neces- 
sarily subordinates,  as  a  general  rule,  the  emotional 
to  the  intellectual  elements  of  religion  ;  it  is  the  most 
protestant  of  all  protestants  ;  it  is  forced,  by  its  posi- 
tion among  the  sects,  to  deny  rather  than  affirm  ;  and 
the  consequence  is,  that  some  persons  of  an  aggressive 
temper  are  attracted  to  its  churches,  who,  while  they 

20 


306  THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF 

have  no  richness  of  religious  experience,  glory  in  a 
great  abundance  of  litigious  animosity  to  orthodox 
opinions.  If  there  can  be  anything  more  hateful  than 
the  stupidest  forms  of  superstitious  bigotry,  it  is  the 
intolerance  of  the  heterodox  bigot,  who  makes  intel- 
lectual assent  to  certain  negations  the  test  of  religious 
character.  An  illiberal  "  liberal "  Christian  is  one  of 
the  most  exasperating  of  all  fanatics ;  for  his  fanati- 
cism is  based  on  what  he  calls  his  reason,  and  he 
ignores  every  fact  of  deep  religious  experience. 

It  is  also  to  be  said  against  the  Unitarians,  as  a 
body,  that  they  are  commonly  scandalously  indifferent 
to  the  works  produced  by  their  most  eminent  repre- 
sentatives in  the  theological  world.  For  example, 
one  of  the  most  profound  books  that  have  lately  ap- 
peared from  the  American  press  is  Dr.  Hedge's 
"  Ways  of  the  Spirit ; "  and  yet  in  my  intercourse 
with  intelligent  Unitarian  laymen  I  have  hardly  found 
one  who  has  heard  that  the  book  has  even  been  pub- 
lished. Here  is  a  man,  generally  admitted  to  be  one 
of  the  foremost  minds  in  the  Unitarian  body,  —  a 
man  who  has  condensed  the  results  of  a  long  life  of 
study  and  thought  into  a  series  of  essays,  recom- 
mended by  all  the  charms  of  a  singularly  lucid, 
pointed,  and  brilliant  style ;  and  yet  opulent  and  cul- 
tivated Unitarians  can  confess  without  shame  that 
they  are  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  his  book ! 
Were  he  an  Episcopalian,  or  a  Presbyterian,  or  a 
Baptist,  or  a  learned  doctor  of  divinity  of  any  Ortho- 
dox persuasion,  there  would  be  such  a  flourish  of 


THOMAS   STARR  KING.  307 

trumpets  that  the  din  would  force  all  men  and  women 
of  his  general  way  of  thinking  to  rush  to  the  book- 
shops, in  order  to  obtain  the  precious  volume ;  but  he 
is  a  Unitarian ;  and  Unitarians  seem  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  their  great  men  should  produce  valuable 
works,  and  they  trust  that  these  works  will  have  a 
good  effect  in  liberalizing  persons  outside  of  the  de- 
nomination. As  for  themselves,  they  are  too  far 
advanced  to  need  any  instruction.  King's  volume  of 
sermons  has  met  with  a  wider  recognition;  but  still 
the  most  cordial  notices  it  has  received  are,  on  the 
whole,  from  the  organs  of  Orthodoxy  ;  and  certainly 
its  large  sale  has  been  rather  among  the  readers  of 
the  "  Independent,"  the  u  Christian  Union."  "  Zion's 
Herald,"  and  the  "  Congregationalist "  than  among 
the  readers  of  the  "  Christian  Register  "  and  the  "Uni- 
tarian Review."  The  Unitarians  ought  to  be  stung, 
by  the  sharpest  implements  which  scorn  and  sarcasm 
can  afford,  into  recognizing  the  fact  that  they  have 
among  their  number  some  of  the  greatest  poets,  some 
of  the  profoundest  theologians,  some  of  the  deepest 
thinkers  of  the  country. 

King,  I  think,  is  a  test  case  of  the  comparative  in- 
difference of  the  polite  and  polished  Unitarian  body 
of  Christians  to  one  of  their  most  noted  products. 
When  I  hear  a  Unitarian  clergyman  superciliously 
remark  of  his  sermons,  that  "  they  are  good  —  very 
good ;  but  then,  you  know,  we  are  sixteen  years  ahead 
of  his  teaching !  "  I  lose  all  my  small  stock  of  pa- 
tience. The  Unitarian  denomination,  during  its  exist- 


308  THE   CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF 

ence  in  this  country,  has  produced  many  scholars, 
thinkers,  and  men  of  spiritual  insight ;  but  among  all 
the  men  distinguished  by  scholarship,  thought,  and 
spiritual  discernment  it  has  produced  very  few  men 
like  Thomas  Starr  King,  who,  uniting  these  various 
qualities,  was  also  a  hero  and  a  martyr.  He  lived  the 
grand  principles  of  humanity  and  Christianity  which 
he  expounded  from  the  pulpit  and  the  platform. 
Channing  was  as  noble  a  moralist,  and  had  perhaps 
a  deeper  spiritual  insight ;  but  Channing  was  an  in- 
valid ;  and  it  was  often  in  a  sick-chamber,  with  long 
pauses  between  the  paragraphs,  he  wrote  down  the 
carefully  elaborated  thoughts  which  have  moved  and 
elevated  the  public  mind.  King  was  a  man  who  went 
into  the  world,  faced  all  the  hardships  of  existence, 
endured  every  kind  of  vexation  with  a  manly  fortitude, 
and  was  ever  ready  to  peril  his  life  for  any  cause  he 
espoused.  In  California,  especially,  he  perfectly  un- 
derstood that  his  labors  for  his  church  and  his  country 
must  kill  him  ;  that  he  was  overtasking  his  strength ; 
that  he  was  letting  his  blood  out  drop  by  drop,  as 
day  by  day  he  toiled  in  obedience  to  the  incessant, 
the  imperative  demands  of  religious  and  political  duty. 
He  never  faltered  in  his  labors,  though  he  was  aware 
that  he  awoke  every  morning  a  weaker  man  phy- 
sically than  he  was  the  day  before ;  that  he  was 
dying  hour  by  hour,  through  that  slow  suicide  of 
overwork  which  is  the  noblest  and  holiest  self-sacri- 
fice that  can  be  made  by  the  martyrs  of  religion  and 
freedom.  This  is  the  spirit  that  breathes  through  his 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  309 

sermons ;  this  gives  them  their  peculiar  inspiration ; 
this  endows  them  with  the  power  equally  to  kindle 
and  console  ;  this  penetrates  them  with  that  sacred 
*,heer  which  sustains  all  souls  struggling  with  calam- 
.by, yet  victorious  over  it  through  trust  in  God.  "But 
—  but  —  but  —  he  was  not  as  advanced  in  his  think- 
ing, you  know,  as  we  other  Unitarian  clergymen  are ! " 
His  lectures  are  penetrated  by  the  same  cordial, 
humane,  and  lofty  spirit  which  animates  his  sermons  ; 
though  of  course  the  lectures  afford  freer  play  to  his 
wit,  to  his  fancy,  —  in  short,  to  his  various  talents 
and  accomplishments.  Of  all  the  men  I  ever  knew, 
he  was  the  one  man  who  most  rapidly  assimilated 
knowledge,  who  most  quickly  converted  it  into  faculty, 
and  who  most  readily  used  it  for  the  purposes  of  the 
reasoner,  the  moralist,  the  Christian,  and  the  poet. 
Give  him  at  night  a  new  work  on  mental  or  physical 
science,  bristling  all  over  with  technical  terms  and 
abstruse  speculations,  and  in  the  morning  he  would 
lucidly  restate  its  processes  and  results,  so  as  not  only 
to  make  them  intelligible,  but  attractive  to  the  average 
mind.  The  lectures  on  "  Substance  and  Show,"  "  The 
Laws  of  Disorder,"  "  Sight  and  Insight,"  and  "  Exist- 
ence and  Life  "  are  quite  remarkable  transformations 
of  the  dry  but  important  facts  and  principles  of  ethics, 
metaphysics,  and,  especially,  of  physical  science,  into 
things  "  rich  and  strange."  These  lectures  were  de- 
livered to  miscellaneous  audiences  in  every  part  of 
the  country,  and  were  so  popular,  that  to  follow  King 
in  the  order  of  a  Lyceum  course  was  always  felt  by 


310  THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OE 

other  lecturers  —  no  matter  how  appropriate  to  the 
uppermost  questions  of  the  day  their  themes  may  have 
been  —  as  a  hazardous  experiment.  Yet  King,  more 
than  any  other  lecturer  except  Mr.  Emerson,  took  for 
his  subjects  the  great  problems  of  existence,  such  as 
had  been  scientifically  treated  by  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
by  Descartes  and  Leibnitz,  by  Hobbes,  Berkeley, 
Locke,  and  Hume,  by  Kant  and  Fichte,  by  Mill  and 
Hamilton,  by  Owen,  Agassiz,  Tyndall,  Huxley,  and  a 
host  of  other  scientists  belonging  to  opposing  schools 
of  philosophy.  The  way  he  devoured  their  books 
resembled  not  so  much  an  intellectual  passion  as  an 
intellectual  greediness.  His  mind  required  food  as  a 
half-starved  man  requires  bread  and  meat;  and  the 
more  he  ate,  the  hungrier  he  seemed  to  grow.  But 
was  it  possible  to  popularize  the  knowledge  he  thus 
acquired,  and  induce  others  to  feel  the  same  unappeas- 
able sacred  hunger  for  the  food  of  the  soul  ?  Now, 
the  popularizing  of  any  science,  ethical,  metaphysical, 
political,  or  physical,  is  a  difficult  task,  unless  he  who 
attempts  it  has  those  qualities  and  powers  which 
swiftly  remove  the  obstructions  which  interfere  with 
their  reception  by  the  popular  mind.  There  are,  for 
example,  two  sciences  which  specially  relate  to  the 
welfare  of  men ;  and  they  are  the  most  unpopular  of 
all  the  sciences.  Everybody  desires  to  have  health 
and  long  life;  and  yet  books  on  physiology  —  books 
which  unfold  the  conditions  of  health  and  longevity  — 
are  little  read  even  by  persons  who  have  mastered 
many  languages,  or  who  have  resolutely  faced  the 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  311 

darkest  and  most  intricate  problems  of  philosophy. 
Everybody,  we  may  say,  desires  to  acquire  wealth  ; 
and  yet  political  economy,  the  science  of  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth,  is  so  distasteful  to  most  minds,  that 
persons  elected  to  be  legislators  can  make  speeches 
—  can  even  enact  laws  —  which  indicate  the  densest 
ignorance  of  the  science  of  wealth,  without  being 
ranked  —  as  they  should  be  —  among  the  degraded 
and  uneducated  masses  of  the  people.  Therefore  the 
two  leading  passions  of  the  human  mind  — the  desire  to 
be  healthy  and  to  be  wealthy  —  have  not  power  enough 
to  induce  even  reasonable  and  educated  men  to  study 
physiology  and  political  economy.  It  is  for  these 
reasons  that  I  consider  King's  power  of  making  the 
demonstrated  truths  of  science  so  attractive  that  minds 
of  all  degrees  of  culture  gladly  received  them,  as  a 
remarkable  gift.  He  so  transmuted,  so  transfigured 
the  facts  and  principles  of  any  given  science  by  his 
humor  and  imagination,  that  his  audiences  listened  to 
him  with  admiring  wonder,  —  a  wonder  mixed  with  a 
kind  of  personal  affection  for  the  genial  speaker,  from 
whose  lips  poured  forth  such  a  tide  of  novel  ideas, 
sparkling  illustrations,  and  glowing  sentiments. 

The  lecture  on  Socrates,  the  longest  in  the  volume, 
is  perhaps  the  most  notable  of  all,  because  it  actually 
introduced  the  great  Greek  moralist  and  philosopher 
to  the  ordinary  inhabitants  of  our  towns  and  villages 
as  an  admirable  person,  whose  acquaintance  was  well 
worth  cultivating.  Socrates  was  to  King  as  real  a 
man  as  any  friend  he  met  in  the  streets ;  and  he 


312  THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF 

made  others  partake  of  his  joy  in  knowing  such  a 
grand  specimen  of  humanity.  Somebody  said  that 
Webster  owed  his  impressiveness  —  perhaps  his  op- 
pressiveness—  to  the  fact  that  "he  was  like  other 
folks,  only  that  there  was  more  of  him."  King  con- 
trived to  convince  both  the  Cape  Cod  fishermen  and 
the  Western  Hoosiers,  who  listened  to  him,  that  Soc- 
rates was  in  direct  relations  with  them,  —  was  one 
of  "  the  folks."  Hazlitt  tells  us  that  rambling  one 
morning  with  Coleridge  by  the  sea-shore,  they  met 
a  fisherman,  who  informed  them  that  the  day  before 
a  large  number  of  fishermen  had  risked  their  own 
lives  in  the  vain  attempt  to  save  a  poor  l^oy  who  was 
drowned.  "  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "  why  it  was 
they  ventured;  but,  sir,  we  have  a  nature  towards 
one  another."  King  had,  in  this  sense,  "  a  nature  " 
towards  all  mankind ;  and  that  made  him  attractive 
to  all  classes  of  men.  He  domesticated  Socrates  in 
Eastern  and  Western  cities  and  towns,  —  made  him  a 
citizen  of  each  place, — because  he  had  the  art  to  show 
that  Socrates  had  "  a  nature  "  in  harmony  with  the 
best  portion  of  their  natures. 

I  have  no  space  left  to  do  any  justice  to  the  ex- 
quisite lecture  on  "  Music  ; "  or  to  that  on  "  Hilde- 
brand,"  the  greatest  of  the  Popes  ;  or  to  that  on 
"  The  Earth  and  the  Mechanic  Arts."  The  reading 
of  the  last  named  is  calculated  to  make  every  me- 
chanic feel  that  his  occupation  has  a  dignity  higher 
than  that  of  the  mere  opulent  u  man  of  society,"  and 
that  the  noblest  aristocracy  is  the  intelligent  and  in- 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  313 

ventive  aristocracy  of  labor.  The  lecture  on  "  Books 
and  Reading  "  is  the  most  judicious,  the  most  stimu- 
lating, the  most  practical,  and  the  most  informing 
of  all  the  essays  on  that  somewhat  worn  subject 
which  I  have  ever  read.  But  perhaps  the  most 
kindling  of  all  the  lectures  in  the  volume  are  those 
which  record  King's  four  years'  contest  with  the  Se- 
cessionists of  California.  The  addresses  on  u  Daniel 
Webster,"  and  "  The  Privilege  and  Duties  of  Patri- 
otism," as  well  as  certain  passages  in  the  college 
oration  on  the  "  Intellectual  Duties  of  Students  in 
their  Academic  Years,"  are  all  ablaze  with  the  spirit 
which  made  King  such  a  formidable  power  in  Cali- 
fornia, when  the  Unionists  were  contending  with 
the  Secessionists  for  the  possession  of  the  State. 
These  are  but  two  out  of  scores  of  patriotic  addresses 
which  he  delivered  in  every  part  of  California  after 
the  war  of  the  Rebellion  broke  out.  Their  effect 
was  great  among  all  classes  of  the  population.  They 
combined  compact  arguments,  shot  at  the  understand- 
ings of  his  auditors,  with  thrilling  appeals  to  their 
feelings.  The  miners  were  particularly  delighted 
with  the  racy  way  in  which  he  stated  and  refuted 
opposing  arguments.  On  one  occasion,  a  tall  miner 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd  of  hearers  exclaimed  to 
his  companion,  who  was  of  a  lower  stature :  "  Stand 
on  your  toes,  Jim,  and  get  a  sight  of  him.  Why,  the 
boy  is  taking  every  trick ! "  Yes,  the  "  boy  "  was 
taking  every  trick;  but  his  life  was  lost  in  this 
process  of  coming  out  triumphant  at  the  close  of 


314  THE  CHARACTER  AND  GENIUS  OF 

every  game.  Talk  of  heroes  and  martyrs  on  the 
battle-field  !  —  God  bless  them !  —  and  especially  God 
bless  them,  when  we  think  that  the  passage  of  a  few 
years  seems  to  have  obliterated  from  the  popular 
mind  any  memory  of  their  services  and  sacrifices ; 
but  among  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  the  war  I  must 
class  King,  who,  without  ever  confronting  any  Con- 
federate with  a  musket  on  his  shoulder,  bravely  grap- 
pled with  the  intellectual  soldiery  of  disunion,  and 
routed  and  overwhelmed  them  in  one  of  their  chosen 
centres  of  revolt.  As  a  common  soldier,  a  single 
bullet  might  have  ended  his  life  and  his  work  ;  as 
a  soldier  of  the  pulpit  and  the  platform  and  the 
"  stump,"  it  was  his  hard  duty  to  die  slowly,  —  re- 
nouncing all  his  cherished  hopes  of  establishing  a 
name  as  a  scholar,  as  a  theologian,  as  a  historian  of 
philosophy,  in  obedience  to  the  demands  of  the  duty 
nearest  to  him  as  a  patriot  and  a  Christian,  and  feel- 
ing his  physical  strength  constantly  decay  with  every 
exercise  of  it  in  his  desperate  contentions  with  those 
whom  he  considered  the  foes  both  of  God  and  man. 

A  strong  desire  is  expressed  that  an  extended  biog- 
raphy of  him  should  be  written,  as  a  guide  and  stimu- 
lus to  young  men  who  are  entering  on  the  path  of 
professional  duty  which  he  trod  with  such  intrepidity 
and  such  usefulness.  The  suggestion  is  a  good  one. 
Still,  if  after  reading  King's  Sermons  and  Lectures, 
anybody  thinks  the  ordinary  details  of  his  daily  life 
can  add  to  the  grand  impressiveness  of  the  soul  re- 
vealed in  them,  he  makes  a  mistake.  The  King  whom 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  315 

all  his  friends  knew,  —  the  brave,  tender,  and  gener- 
ous heart ;  the  bright  and  fertile  brain  ;  the  strong, 
aspiring  soul,  affirming  the  reality  of  life,  and  denying 
the  reality  of  death,  —  this  King  we  have  in  the  two 
volumes  where  his  mind  and  personality  are  embodied. 
More  sermons,  more  lectures,  should  be  published,  — 
the  more  the  better ;  but  the  real  King  is  found  in 
the  books  where  his  spirit  is  enshrined.  There  is  not 
a  noble  sentence  in  the  two  volumes,  now  published, 
which  King  did  not  illustrate  in  his  own  life.  What 
is  the  worth  of  details  of  housekeeping,  and  common- 
place incidents  which  have  no  spiritual  significance, 
in  comparison  with  the  grand  Soul  which  shines 
through  all  these  printed  pages  ? 

In  conclusion,  I  may  say  that  in  dwelling  on  the 
memories  of  King's  character  and  gifts  I  participate 
in  the  feeling  of  Shelley,  in  his  monody  on  the  death 
of  Keats :  — 

"  The  soul  of  Adonais,  like  a  star, 
Beacons  from  the  abode  where  the  Eternal  are." 


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